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GREAT ENGLISHMEN OF THE 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY 




-W/7 Ofefrt 



<JlAj/(fz. dsid/iey , 






GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

OF THE 

SIXTEENTH CENTURY 



BY 
SIDNEY LEE 

litt.d., editor of the ' dictionary of national biography ' 

corresponding member of the massachusetts historical society 

author of 'a life of william shakespeare,' and 

'queen victoria: a biography' 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1904 



LIBRASYcf CON 
Two Cop 

NOV 12 I9U4 

Gouyrigm t 
CLASS A 'xXc" No/ 

copy a. 






Copyright, 1904, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published, November, 1904 



TROW DIRECTORY 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 

NEW YORK 



PREFACE 

The contents of this volume are based on a series of eight 
lectures which I delivered, by invitation of the Trustee, at 
the Lowell Institute, Boston, in the spring of last year. 
I paid a first visit to America for the purpose of fulfilling 
that engagement. My reception was in all ways of the 
pleasantest, and I feel especially grateful to my Boston 
audience for the considerate attention which they extended 
to me. 

In preparing the lectures for the press I have adhered 
to the main lines which I followed in their delivery. But 
I have judged it necessary to make sweeping alterations 
in form and detail. I have introduced much information 
which was scarcely fitted for oral treatment. I have 
endeavoured to present more coherently and more exhaust- 
ively the leading achievements of the Renaissance in Eng- 
land than was possible in the time at the disposal of a 
lecturer. I have tried, however, to keep in view the require- 
ments of those to whom the lectures were originally 
addressed. Though I have embodied in my revision the 
fruits of some original research, I have not overloaded my 
pages with recondite references. My chief aim has been to 
interest the cultivated reader of general intelligence rather 
than the expert. 

The opening lecture of my course at Boston surveyed 
in general terms the uses to the public (alike in England 



vi GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

and America) of the Dictionary of National Biography. 
Of that lecture I have only printed a small section in this 
volume. I have substituted for it, by way of introduction, 
a sketch of the intellectual spirit which was peculiar to the 
sixteenth century. This preparatory essay, which is practi- 
cally new, gives, I trust, increased unity to the general 
handling of my theme. 

The six men of whom I treat are all obviously, in their 
several ways, representative of the highest culture of six- 
teenth-century England, but they by no means exhaust 
the subject. Many other great Englishmen of the six- 
teenth century — statesmen like Wolsey and Burghley, the- 
ologians like Colet and Hooker, dramatists like Marlowe 
and Ben Jonson, men of science like William Gilbert, the 
electrician, and Napier of Merchiston, the inventor of 
logarithms — deserve association with them in any complete 
survey of sixteenth-century culture. In choosing five of 
the six names, I was moved by the fact that I had already 
studied, with some minuteness, their careers and work in my 
capacity of contributor to the Dictionary of National 
Biography. I wrote there the lives of Sir Thomas More, 
Sir Philip Sidney and Shakespeare, and I collaborated 
with others in the biographies of Sir Walter Ralegh and 
Edmund Spenser. I have not written at any length on 
Bacon before; but it is obvious that not the briefest list 
of great Englishmen of the sixteenth century would be 
worthy of attention were he excluded from it. I hope that, 
by presenting Bacon in juxtaposition with Shakespeare, I 
may do something to dispel the hallucination which would 
confuse the achievements of the one with those of the other. 

Any who desire to undertake further study of the men 
who form my present subject may possibly derive some 



PREFACE vii 

guidance from the bibliographies prefixed to each chapter. 
There I mention the chief editions of the literary works 
which I describe and criticise, and give references to biogra- 
phies of value. For full bibliographies and exhaustive 
summaries of the biographical facts, the reader will do well 
to consult, in each case, the article in the Dictionary of 
National Biography. My present scheme only enables me 
to offer my readers such information as illustrates leading 
characteristics. I seek to trace the course of a great intel- 
lectual movement rather than attempt detailed biographies 
of those who are identified with its progress. 

In the hope of increasing the usefulness of the volume 
I have supplied a somewhat full preliminary analysis of its 
contents, as well as a chronological table of leading events 
in European culture from the invention of printing in 1477 
to Bacon's death in 1626. I have also added an index. In 
preparing these sections of the book, I have been largely 
indebted to the services of Mr. W. B. Owen, B.A., late 
scholar of St. Catherine's College, Cambridge. I have at 
the same time to thank my friend Mr. Thomas Seccombe 
for reading the final proofs. 

October 1, 1904. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface, v 

List of Illustrations, • xvii 

Chronological Table, xix 



THE SPIRIT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 



Bibliography, 



page 
. 1 



National Biography and sixteenth 

century England, 
Causes of distinctive achievement 
The Renaissance, . 
Unity of the movement, 
'Knowledge is power,' . 



Width of outlook 4 

Checks on distribution of mental 

energy, 5 

Versatility of great Englishmen of 

the epoch, 6 

m 

The transitional aspect of the cen- 
tury, 7 

Primary causes of the awakening, . 7 
The priority of the intellectual rev- 
elation, 8 



The discovery of Greek literature 

and philosophy, . 
The Italian influence, 
The physical revelation, 
Maritime exploration, 
The discovery of the solar system 
The expansion of thought, 



8 

9 

9 

9 

10 

10 



11 



The invention of printing, 

The Renaissance and the Church of 

Rome. 11 

The compromise of Protestantism, 12 
Literary influence of the Bible, . 13 



The ethical paradox of the era, 
The alliance of good and evil, 
The paradox of More, Bacon, and 

Ralegh 

The paradox of Sidney, Spenser, and 

Shakespeare 



14 

14 



14 



15 



Bibliography, 



n 

SIR THOMAS MORE 

The invention of printing. 



page 
. 17 



More's birth, 7th Feb. 1478, 



17 



More's father, 



PAGE 

. 18 



19 



GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



PAGE 

At school in London, . . .20 
In the service of Archbishop Morton, 

1491 20 

At Oxford, 1492, . . . .20 
The influence of Oxford, . . 21 

A student of law, 1494, . . .22 
Spiritual questionings, . . .22 



The influence of Erasmus, . . 23 
Erasmus's friendship for More, . 25 



More's first marriage, 1505, . . 25 

His second marriage, 1511, . . 26 

Settlement at Chelsea, . . .26 

Under-Sheriff of London, 1510, . 27 



First visit to the Continent, 1515, . 27 
Social recreation at Antwerp, . 28 



First draft of the Utopia, 1516, . 28 
Detachment of the Utopia, . . 28 



The First Book of the Utopia, . 29 

The ideal of the New World, . 30 

The Second Book, . . .31 

Utopian philosophy, . .32 

Utopian religion, . . . .32 



Utopia published on the Continent, 33 
Contrast between Utopian precepts 

and More's personal practice, . 34 

The Utopia a dream of fancy, . 34 



Dread of the Lutheran revolution, 35 

Court office 36 

More's attitude to politics, . . 37 

His loyalty 38 



Rapid preferment, 1518-1523, . 39 



PAGE 

Chancellor, 25th October 1529, . 39 
The King and the Reformation, . 40 



XI 

More's view of the King's projected 
divorce, ..... 
The growth of Protestantism, 
More's conscientious scruples, 
His resignation of the Woolsack, . 
His spiritual ambition, . 



More's impaired resources, 

The Chelsea tomb, 

His work as Chancellor, . 

XIII 

More and theological controversy, 
The Maid of Kent, 1533, 
The threat of prosecution, 



The triumph of Anne Boleyn, 
The oath abjuring the Pope, . 
More's detention, 1534, . 
The oath of the Act of Succession, 



In the Tower, 1534, 
His trial, 1st July 1535, 



More's character, . 
His mode of life, 
His love of art, 
His Latin writing, . 
His English poetry, 
His English prose, . 
Pico's Life, 

Controversial theology, 
His devotional treatises, 
His literary repute, 
The paradox of his career 



41 

41 
42 
43 
43 



44 
45 
45 



47 
48 
50 



50 
51 
51 

52 



53 

54 



More's execution, 6th July 1535, . 56 
The reception abroad of the news, 58 



58 
58 
59 
59 
59 
60 
60 
60 
61 
61 
62 



CONTENTS 



III 

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 



Bibliography, 



Sidney's rank, 
Intellectual ambitions, 



PAGE 
. 63 



03 
64 



National strife, . . . .65 
Sidney's birth, 30th Nov. 1554, . 65 
Queen Elizabeth's accession, 1558, 66 
The Earl of Leicester, . . .67 



m 



At Shrewsbury school, . 


67 


Fulke Greville, 


67 


At Oxford, 1568, . 


68 


Lord Burghley's favour, 


69 


IV 




Foreign travel, 


71 


The St. Bartholomew Massacre 




23rd August 1572, 


72 


The meeting with Languet, . 


72 


At Vienna, 1573, . 


73 


At Venice, 1573-4, 


73 


Protestant zeal, 


74 


Diplomatic employment, 


74 


End of the foreign tour, 


75 


V 

At Kenilworth, 1576, 


76 


Penelope Devereux, 


77 


'Astrophel and Stella,' . 


77 


Sidney's sonnets, . 


78 


Their influence, 


81 


VI 




Political ambitions, 


8i 


At Heidelberg and Vienna, 1577 


83 


At Antwerp 


83 


VII 




Varied occupations. 


85 



PAGE 

Friendship with Spenser, . . 86 
The literary club of 'The Areo- 
pagus,' 1579 86 

Intercourse with Bruno, 1584, . 88 



Sidney and the Drama, . . 89 

The Apologie for Poeirie, . .91 

The worth of poetry, , . .92 
Confusion between poetry and prose, 93 
Enlightened conclusions, . . 94 



IX 

Difficulties at Court, 

In retirement, 

The Arcadia, 

Its foreign models, 

The verse of the Arcadia 

The prose style. 

Want of coherence. 



95 

96 

97 

97 

102 

103 

103 



Reconciliation with the Queen, . 103 

Official promotion, . . . 104 
His knighthood, 1583, . . .104 

Joint-Master of the Ordnance, 1585, 105 

Marriage, 1585 105 

The call of the New World, . . 106 

Grant to Sidney of land in America, 107 

XI 

The last scene 108 

Hostility to Spain, 1585, . . 108 

Governor of Flushing, 1586, . . 109 

Difficulties of the Dutch campaign, 110 

The attack on Zutphen, 1586, . 110 

Sidney's death, 17th Oct. 1586, . Ill 



Sidney's career, . . . .112 
His literary work, .... 113 
Influence of the Arcadia, . .114 
The impression of his life and work, 115 



GREAT ENGLISHMEN 
IV 

SIR WALTER RALEGH 



Bibliography, 



page 
. 116 



Primary cause of colonial expan- 
sion, 116 

Three secondary causes, . . 116 



Great colonising epochs, . .118 

Columbus' discovery, 1492, . .118 

England and the New World, . 119 

America and new ideals, . . 120 

The spirit of adventure, . . 120 

Imaginary age of Gold, . . . 121 

Moral ideals, 122 



Ralegh a type of Elizabethan ver- 
satility, 123 

Sir Francis Drake, .... 123 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, . . .123 
Ralegh's birth, 1552, . . .124 
Infancy and Education, . . 124 



The rivalry with Spain, . 
Spain and Holland, 
Ralegh in France, 1569, . 
His first conflict with Spain, 
In Ireland, 1580, . 



124 
125 
125 
125 
126 



Ralegh and Queen Elizabeth, 1581, 128 
His relations with Virginia, . . 130 
The potato and tobacco, . . 130 



VI PAGE 

Captain John Smith in Virginia, . 131 
Colonial philosophy of the time, . 131 



The Spanish Armada, 1588, . . 133 
Intellectual pursuits, . . . 134 
Ralegh's poetry, .... 134 
Meetings at the 'Mermaid,' . . 136 

VIII 

El Dorado 137 

The Expedition to Guiana, . . 137 



Ralegh and Court factions, . . 142 

The accession of James i., 1603, . 143 

Charges of treason, . . . 143 

Sentence of death, 1603, . . 144 

x 

In the Tower, .... 145 

Scientific curiosity, . . . 145 

The History of the World, . .145 
Character of the work, . . . 146 

XI 

Hopes of freedom, . . . 148 

The projected return to Guiana, 

1616 148 

Failure of the expedition, . . 150 
Disgrace and death, 29th. Oct. 1618, 150 



Contemporary estimate of Ralegh, 152 
His failure and success, . . 153 
The true founder of American col- 
onisation, 153 



EDMUND SPENSER 



Bibliography, 



page 
. 155 



The Elizabethan pursuit of poetry, 155 
The contrast between Spenser's ca- 
reer and his poetic zeal, . .157 



His humble birth, 1552, 

At Merchant Taylors' School, 

At Cambridge, 

Gabriel Harvey, 

Early verse, 1568, . 



PAGE 

. 158 
. 159 
. 160 
. 161 
. 161 



CONTENTS 



III PAGE 

Disappointment in love, . • 162 

Settlement in London, 1578, . . 163 

The patronage of Leicester, . . 163 

Sir Philip Sidney 165 

The classical fallacy, . . . 165 

Poetic experiments, . . . 166 

IV 

The Shepheards Calender, 1579, . 167 

Its foreign models 167 

Eulogy of Chaucer, . . . 168 

The critical apparatus, . . . 169 
Place of the poem in English poetry, 171 



Official promotion, 1580, 
Migration to Ireland, 
The Irish problem, 
Early friends in Ireland, 
Spenser's poetic exertions, 



173 
173 
173 
174 
175 



Removal to the south of Ireland, 

1588, 176 

Quarrels with neighbours, . . 176 
Sir Walter Ralegh, . . .177 

London revisited, 1589, . . 178 

The Faerie Queene, books i.-iii., . 179 



The grant of a pension, . . 180 

The return to Ireland, 1597, . . 181 

His despair of his fortunes, . . 181 

Complaints, 1590, . . . .182 



VIII PAGE 

The poet's marriage, 1594, . . 183 

His Amoretti, 1595, . . .183 

The Epithalamion, 1595, . . 185 
The Faerie Queene continued, 1596, 186 

Political difficulties, . . .187 

The Earl of Essex's patronage, . 187 

The prose tract on Ireland, 1597, . 188 



Sheriff of Cork, 1598, . 
Ireland in rebellion, 
Last mission to London, 1598, 
His death, 16th January 1599, 
The tomb in Westminster Abbey, 



190 
191 
192 
192 
194 



Spenser's greatness, 


. 195 


The Faerie Queene, 


. 195 


The amplitude of scale, 


. 195 


The moral aim, 


. 197 


The debt to Plato, . 


. 198 


Affinities with chivalric r 


omance, . 200 


Want of homogeneity, 


. 201 


The allegory, . 


. 202 


Bunyan's superiority 


. 202 


Influence of the age, 


. 203 


The Spenserian stanza, 


. 207 


The vocabulary, 


. 209 


The debt to Chaucer, 


. 209 


Sensitiveness to beauty. 


. 210 


Spenser's influence, 


. 212 



VI 

FRANCIS BACON 



Bibliography, 



page 
. 214 



Bacon's and Shakespeare's distinct 
individualities, . . . .215 



ii 

Bacon's parents, 
Birth, Jan. 22, 1561, 
Education, 



216 

217 
217 



The profession of law, . 
Bacon's idealism, . 
His materialism, 
His entrance into politics, 
His scheme of life, . 



Bacon's relations with Essex, 
The government of Ireland, 
Downfall of Essex, 1601, 



page 

. 218 
. 218 
. 219 
. 219 
. 220 



222 
223 
224 



GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



PAGE 

Essex's death, 25th Feb., 1601, . 224 
Bacon's perfidy, .... 225 



Bacon and James I., . 225 

Advice to the King, . . . 226 
The political situation, . . . 226 



Literary occupations, . . . 227 

Marriage, 1606 229 

Bacon's first promotion, 1607, . 230 
Attorney-General, 1613, . . 230 



The political peril, . . . 230 

Bacon and Buckingham, , .231 

Lord Keeper, 1617, . . .231 

Lord Verulam, 1618, and Viscount 

Alban, 1621 231 

His judical work, . , . .232 

VIII 

The Novum Organum, 1620, . . 233 
The charge of corruption, 1621, .234 
Bacon's collapse, .... 234 
His punishment and his retirement, 235 
His literary and scientific occupa- 
tion, 235 



IX 



His death, April 9, 1626, 
His neglect of morality, 
His want of savoir {aire, 



236 
239 
239 



X PAGE 

His true greatness, . . . 240 
His literary versatility, . . . 240 
His contempt for the English tongue 241 
His Essays, ..... 241 
His majestic style, . . . 242 
His verse, 243 



XI 



His philosophic works, . 


. 245 


His attitude to science, . 


. 245 


His opposition to Aristotle, 


. 246 


On induction, 


. 246 


The doctrine of idols. 


. 247 



The possibilities of man's knowl- 
edge, 

The fragmentary character of his 
work, 

His ignorance of contemporary ad- 
vances in science, 

His own discoveries, 



249 



249 



249 
250 



His place in the history of science, 250 



The endowment of research, . .251 
The New Atlantis, 1614-1618, . 251 
The epilogue to the English Renais- 
sance, 252 

The imaginary college of science, . 253 
Bacon's aspiration, . . . 255 

Prospects of realising Bacon's ideal, 255 



vn 

SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 



Bibliography, 



PAGE 

. 256 



The documentary material, . . 256 
Parentage and baptism, 26th April 

1564 257 

Education 257 

His self-training 258 



II PAGE 

Experiences of youth, . . . 259 
The infant drama, .... 259 
His association with London, 1586, 261 



The period of probation, 
Use of law terms, . 



261 
262 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Shakespeare's conformity with pre- 
vailing habit, .... 264 



IV 

Shakespeare's early plays. 
The Earl of Southampton, 
At Court, 1594, 
Court favour, 



265 
265 
266 
268 



The favour of the crowd, . . 269 
Popular fallacy of Shakespeare's 
neglect 269 



Progressive quality of his work, . 271 



VII PAGK 

The return to Stratford, 1611, .272 

His financial competence, . 273 

VIII 

His last days, April 1616, . . 275 

His will, 276 

His monument 277 



His elegists 278 

Prophecy of immortality, . 280 



The certainty of our knowledge, . 282 
The loss of his manuscripts, . . 282 



VIII 

FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 



Bibliography, 



Shakespeare's universal repute, 
In Germany and France, 
Shakespeare's patriotism, 



PAGE 

. 285 



286 
286 
286 



Foreign influence on Elizabethan 

literature 288 

Elizabethan plagiarism, . . 289 



Shakespeare's assimilative power, 289 
His instantaneous power of per- 
ception, . . . 291 



Early instruction in Latin, . . 292 

Apparent ignorance of Greek, . 293 

Knowledge of French and Italian, . 294 

Lack of scholarship, . . . 296 



v PAGE 

Shakespeare no traveller abroad, . 297 
Imaginative affinity with Italy, . 299 



Internal evidences of foreign in- 
fluence 300 

Greek mythology, .... 300 

Mythical history of Greece, . . 301 

History of Rome 302 

Italian history and literature, . 303 

The Italian novel 304 

Othello and Merchant of Venice, . 305 

Petrarch 306 

Italian art, 307 



Poetry of France, .... 308 
Rabelais and Montaigne, . . 310 



Alertness in acquiring foreign knowl- 
edge 310 



GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



The geographical aspect of 
work, .... 

Geographical blunders, . 



The foreign spirit in his work, 
Historic sensibility, 
Fidelity to 'atmosphere,' 
Width of historic outlook. 






PAGE 


X I 


'AGE 


is 


Shakespeare's relation to his era, . 


317 


. 311 


Elizabethan literature and the Re- 




. 312 


naissance, .... 
Shakespeare's foreign contempo- 


317 




raries 


318 


. 313 


The diffusion of the spirit of the 




. 314 


Renaissance, . . . . 


319 


. 315 


Misapprehensions to be guarded 




. 316 


against, . 


319 



Index, 



323 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Sir Philip Sidney, from the miniature by Isaac 
Oliver in the Royal Library at Windsor 
Castle, Frontispiece 

Sir Thomas More at the age of 49, from the 
portrait by Holbein in the possession of 
Edward Huth, Esq., to face page 17 

Sir Walter Ralegh at the age of 34, from the 
portrait attributed to Federigo Zuccaro in 
the National Portrait Gallery, . . . " "116' 

Edmund Spenser, from the portrait in the pos- 
session of the Earl of Kinnoull at Dupplin 
Castle, " " 155 

Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban, from the 
portrait by Paul Van Somer in the National 
Portrait Gallery, " "214 

William Shakespeare, from the monument in 
the chancel of the Parish Church at Strat- 
ford-upon-Avon, " u 256 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 

OF LEADING EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND 

EUROPEAN CULTURE FROM THE INTRODUCTION 

OF PRINTING INTO ENGLAND TO THE 

DEATH OF FRANCIS BACON 



1477. Caxton sets up a printing-press 

at Westminster. 
Birth of Titian. 

1478. Birth of Sir Thomas More. 

1480. Birth of Bandello, the Italian 
novelist. 

1483. Birth of Raphael. 
Birth of Luther. 
Birth of Rabelais. 

1484. Birth of Julius Caesar Scaliger. 

1485. Death of Richard in. 
Accession of Henry vu. 

1486. Birth of Andrea del Sarto. 

1491. Copernicus' studies optics, and 

mathematics at Cracow. 

1492. Columbus' first voyage to West 

Indies. 

1493. Columbus' second voyage to West 

Indies. 

1494. Death of Politian. 

1497. John Cabot sights Cape Breton 

and Nova Scotia. 
Vasco di Gama rounds the Cape 

of Good Hope. 
Birth of Holbein. 

1498. Columbus discovers South Amer- 

ica. 
Erasmus first visits England. 
Death of Savonarola. 

1499. Cabot follows North American 

coast from 60° to 30° N. lat. 
Leonardo da Vinci's ' Last Supper.' 



1499 
1502 



1504 



1506. 
1508. 



1509. 



1510. 



1511. 
1512. 
1513. 



1515. 



1516. 



Birth of Charles v. 

Columbus sails in the Gulf of 
Mexico. 

More enters Parliament. 

More's first marriage. 

Leonardo da Vinci paints 'Mona 
Lisa. ' 

Sanazzaro's Arcadia. 

Death of Columbus. 

Michael Angelo decorates the roof 
of the Sistine Chapel. 

Death of Henry vu. 

Accession of Henry vin. 

Erasmus' Encomium Morice pub- 
lished. 

Raphael decorates the Vatican. 

Birth of Calvin. 

More Under-Sheriff of London. 

Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. 

Titian paints ' Sacred and profane 
Love.' 

Death of Botticelli. 

More's second marriage. 

Death of Amerigo Vespucci. 

Leo x. Pope. 

Wolsey chief minister in England. 

Machiavelli's Prince composed. 

More sent as envoy to Flanders. 

Raphael's 'Sistine Madonna.' 

Erasmus translates Vulgate into 
Greek. 

More's Utopia. 

xix 



GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



1517. 


Erasmus finally leaves England. 
Luther nails his challenge to the 
Pope on Wittenberg Church 


1533. 




door. 


1534. 


1518. 


Birth of Tintoretto. 




1519. 


Death of Leonardo da Vinci. 
Charles v. elected emperor. 




1520. 


Death of Raphael. 






Luther burns papal bull condemn- 


1535. 




ing him. 




1521. 


More knighted. 




1521. 


Luther translates Scriptures into 






German. 


1536. 




Death of Leo x. 




1522. 


Luther attacks Henry vni. 




1523. 


Lord Berners's translation of 
Froissart's Chronicles (1st vol.) 
published. 

More Speaker of the House of 






Commons. 


1539. 




Titian's ' Bacchus and Ariadne.' 




1524. 


Birth of Ronsard. 


1540. 


1525. 


Tyndale translates the New Testa- 
ment into English. 


1542. 




Lord Berners's translation of 


1543. 




Froissart's Chronicles (2nd vol.) 






published. 


1544. 




More Chancellor of the Duchy of 


1546. 




Lancaster. 




1526. 


Sebastian Cabot visits La Plata 
in behalf of Charles v. of Spain. 




1527. 


Holbein visits England. 






Death of Machiavelli (cet. 58). 


1547. 


1528. 


Birth of Albert Diirer. 






Birth of Paul Veronese. 


1549. 


1529. 


More succeeds Wolsey as Lord 
Chancellor. 




1530. 


Copernicus (De Revolutionibus) 
completes description of solar 






system. 


1550. 




The Augsburg Confession em- 






bodies Luther's final principles. 




1532. 


More resigns office of Lord Chan- 






cellor. 


1551. 




Machiavelli's Prince published. 






Rabelais' Pantagruel and Gar- 


1552. 




gantua. 






Birth of Jean Antoine de Baif. 




1533 


Separation of English Church 






from Rome. 


1553. 



Divorce of Queen Catherine. 

Death of Ariosto. 

Birth of Montaigne. 

Henry vni. made supreme Head 

of the Church of England. 
The Nun of Kent denounces 

Henry vni. 
More sent to the Tower. 
Execution of More. 
Coverdale's translation of the 

Bible (first complete Bible 

printed in English). 
English Bible issued by Rogers. 
Dissolution of lesser monasteries. 
Pope Paul in. issues bull of de- 
position against Henry vni. 
Death of Erasmus. 
Calvin's Christiance Religionis In- 

stitutio published. 
Suppression of greater abbeys in 

England. 
Order of Jesuits instituted. 
Montemayor's Diana. 
Inquisition established in Rome. 
Death of Copernicus. 
Death of Holbein. 
Birth of Tasso. 
Michael Angelo designs the dome 

of St. Peter's, Rome. 
Death of Luther. 
Birth of Tycho Brahe. 
Birth of Philippe Desportes. 
Death of Henry vm. 
Accession of Edward vi. 
English Book of Common Prayer 

issued. 
Ronsard's first poem published. 
Du Bellay's Defense ei illustration 

de la langue Francaise. 
Monument to Chaucer erected in 

Westminster Abbey. 
Inauguration of the French 

Plgiade. 
English translation of More's 
Utopia. 
. English Prayer Book revised by 

Cranmer. 
Birth of Edmund Spenser. 
Birth of Sir Walter Ralegh. 
. Death of Edward vi. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 



xxi 



1553. Coronation of Lady Jane Grey. 
Accession of Mary, who restores 

the Catholic religion. 
Death of Rabelais. 

1554. Birth of Sir Philip Sidney. 
Bandello's Novelle published. 

1555. Persecution of Protestants in 

England. 

1556. Death of Cranmer. 

Death of Ingatius Loyola, founder 
of the Jesuits. 
1558. England loses Calais. 

Death of Queen Mary. 

Accession of Queen Elizabeth, who 
restores Protestantism in Eng- 
land. 

Death of Julius Caesar Scaliger. 

1560. The Geneva (Breeches) Bible. 
First collective edition of the 

works of Ronsard. 
Death of Du Bellay. 
Death of Bandello, the Italian 

novelist. 

1561. Birth of Francis Bacon. 
Scaliger's Poetics published. 

1562. Tasso's epic Rinaldo written. 

1563. The Thirty-nine Articles imposed 

on the English Clergy. 

1564. Birth of Shakespeare. 
Birth of Marlowe. 
Death of Michael Angelo. 
Death of Calvin. 

Birth of Galileo. 

1565. Cinthio's Hecatommithi published. 
1568. The 'Bishop's Bible' published. 

1571. Bull of deposition issued by Pope 

Pius v. against Queen Eliza- 
beth. 
Birth of Kepler. 

1572. The St. Bartholomew Massacre in 

Paris. 

1573. Sidney in Germany and Italy. 

1574. Death of Cinthio, the Italian 

novelist. 
1576. First public theatre opened in 
London. 

Death of Titian. 

Festivities at Kenilworth in hon- 
our of Queen Elizabeth. 

Spenser becomes M.A. 



1577. Sidney on diplomatic mission in 

Germany. 
Birth of Rubens. 

1578. Sidney visits William of Orange 

at Antwerp. 

1579. Gosson's School of Abuse. 
North's English translation of 

Plutarch's Lives. 

Spenser's Shepheards Calender 
published. 

Sidney and Spenser became mem- 
bers of the 'Areopagus.' 

Birth of John Fletcher. 

1580. Lyly's Euphues published. 
Spenser settles in Ireland in 

Government service. 

Sir F. Drake returns to England 
after his circumnavigation. 

Kepler and Tycho Brahe's Astro- 
nomical Tables published. 

Montaigne's Essais (i. ii.) pub- 
lished. 

1581. Sidney's Arcadia finished, his 

Sonnets and Apologie for Poetrie 
begun. 
Tasso's Gerusalcmme Liberata pub- 
lished, and Aminta written. 

1582. Shakespeare marries Anne Hatha- 

way. 
Bible translated by English Cath- 
olics at Rheims. 

1583. Bruno visits England. 

Sidney knighted: becomes Joint- 
Master of Ordnance and marries 
Frances Walsingham. 

Sir Humphrey Gilbert voyages to 
Newfoundland. 

Grant to Sidney of land in Amer- 
ica. 

Galileo discovers the principle of 
the pendulum. 

1584. Bacon enters Parliament. 
Ralegh's colonisation of Virginia 

begins. 
Birth of Francis Beaumont. 

1585. Death of Ronsard (27th Decem- 

ber). 
Guarini's Pastor Fido acted. 
Cervantes' first work, Galatea, 

published. 



GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



1586. Shakespeare leaves Stratford-on- 

Avon for London. 

Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity 
begun. 

Bacon becomes a member of 
Gray's Inn. 

English army supports Protes- 
tants of Low Countries. 

Sidney Governor of Flushing. 

Tobacco and potatoes introduced 
into England. 

1587. Marlowe's Tamburlaine produced. 
Marlowe, Lodge, Greene, and 

Peele begin writing for English 
stage. 
Execution of Mary Queen of Scots. 

1588. Defeat of Spanish Armada. 
Death of Paul Veronese. 
Montaigne's Essais (iii.) published. 

1589. Bacon's Advertisement touching 

Controversies of the Church. 
Drake plunders Corunna. 
Lope de Vega commences his great 

series of dramas. 
Death of Jean Antoine de Baif. 

1590. Sidney's Arcadia published. 
Spenser revisits London, and pub- 
lishes his Faerie Queene (i.-iii.). 

Death of Walsingham. 

1591. Bacon enters service of the Earl 

of Essex. 

Spenser receives a pension from 
the Queen. 

Sidney's Astrophel and Stella. 

Spenser's Daphnaida and Com- 
plaints. 

Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost 
written. 

1592. Shakespeare remodels Henry VI. 
Death of Montaigne. 

Galileo supports Copernican theory 
in lectures at Padua. 

1593. Death of Marlowe. 
Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis 

published. 

1594. Shakespeare's Lucrece published. 
Shakespeare acts at Court. 
Spenser marries Elizabeth Boyle. 
Death of Tintoretto. 

1595. Ralegh sails to Guiana. 



1595. Sidney's Apologie for Poetrie pub- 

lished. 
Spenser's Colin Clout, Amoretti, 

and Epithalamion published. 
Death of Tasso. 

1596. Death of Sir Francis Drake. 
Ralegh's Discovery of Guiana writ- 
ten (published, 1606). 

Spenser's View of the State of Ire- 
land completed, Faerie Queene 
(iv.-vi.) and Prothalamion pub- 
lished. 

1597. First edition of Bacon's Essays. 
Shakespeare writes 1 Henry IV., 

and purchases New Place, 
Stratford-on-Avon. 

1598. Globe Theatre built. 
Death of Lord Burghley. 
Spenser Sheriff of Cork. 
Sidney's Arcadia edited in folio. 
Jonson's Every Man in His 

Humour acted. 

1599. Death of Spenser and burial in 

Westminster Abbey. 
Expedition of Earl of Essex in 
Ireland. 

1600. William Gilbert's De Magnele 

published. 

Death of Hooker. 

Birth of Calderon. 

Fairfax's translation of Tasso's 
Jerusalem Delivered published. 

Giordano Bruno burned at Rome. 

Earl of Essex's rebellion and ex- 
ecution. 

Death of Tycho Brahe ; he is 
succeeded by Kepler as as- 
tronomer to the Emperor Ru- 
dolph ii. 

Hamlet produced. 

Death of Queen Elizabeth. 

Accession of James i. 

Florio's translation of Montaigne 
published. 

Ralegh condemned for alleged 
treason and imprisoned in the 
Tower of London. 
1604. Hamlet published in quarto. 

England makes peace with Spain. 

Kepler's Optics published. 



1601. 



1602. 
1603. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 



xxni 



1605. 



1607. 
1608. 



1609. 



1611. 

1612. 

1613. 
1614. 
1615. 
1616, 



Bacon's Advancement of Learning 
published. 

Bacon marries Alice Barnham. 

Cervantes' Don Quixote, Part i., 
published. 

Death of Desportes. 

Bacon Solicitor-General. 

King Lear published in quarto. 

Birth of Milton. 

Spenser's Works published in folio- 
Shakespeare's Sonnets, Troilus and 
Cressida, and Pericles published 
in quarto. 

Kepler publishes first and second 
laws of astronomical calcula- 
tion. 

Galileo discovers the satellites of 
Jupiter. 

Shakespeare's Tempest probably- 
written ; after which the dram- 
atist retires to Stratford. 

Authorised Version of Bible is- 
sued. 

Second edition of Bacon's Essays. 

Death of Robert Cecil, Earl of 
Salisbury. 

Bacon Attorney-General. 

Death of Guarini. 

Ralegh's History of the World 
published. 

Cervantes' Don Quixote, Part ii., 
published. 

Bacon privy-councillor. 



1616. Death of Shakespeare. 
Death of Francis Beaumont. 
Death of Cervantes. 

1617. Bacon Lord Keeper. 
Expedition of Ralegh to the 

Orinoco. 
Galileo submits to the ecclesias- 
tical authorities. 

1619. Bacon Lord Chancellor, and raised 

to peerage as Lord Verulam. 
Ralegh's execution. 
Harvey reveals his discovery of 

the Circulation of the Blood. 
Kepler publishes third law in his 

Harmonia Mundi. 

1620. Landing of Pilgrim Fathers in 

New England. 
Bacon's Novum Organum pub- 
lished. 

1621. Bacon made Viscount St. Alban; 

charged with corruption, con- 
victed, and degraded. 

1622. Bacon's Henry VII. published. 
Othello published in quarto. 

1623. Shakespeare's First Folio pub- 

lished. 
Bacon's De Augmentis published. 

1624. Bacon writes New Atlantis. 

1625. Third and final edition of Bacon's 

Essays. 
Death of James i. 
Death of John Fletcher. 

1626. Death of Bacon (April 9). 



GREAT ENGLISHMEN OF THE 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY 

I 

THE SPIRIT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 

'What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how in- 
finite in faculty! in form, in moving how express and admi- 
rable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like 
a god ! the beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals ! ' 

Shakespeare, Hamlet, n. ii. 323-8. 

* Nam ipsa scientia potestas est. ' 

Bacon, M editationes Sacrae. 

[Bibliography. — The subject of the European Renaissance 
may be studied at length in Burckhardt's Civilisation of the 
Period of the Renaissance in Italy (English ed. 1890); in J. A. 
Symonds's Renaissance in Italy (7 vols. ed. 1898) ; and in the 
Cambridge Modern History, vol. i., 1902. Important phases 
of the movement are well illustrated in Walter Pater's collec- 
tion of Essays called The Renaissance (1877).] 



In the Dictionary of National Biography will be found the 
lives of more than two thousand Englishmen and English- 
women who flourished in England in the sixteenth National 
century. It is the first century in our history & nd graP Y 
which offers the national biographer subjects cen*tn-y th 
reaching in number to four figures. The English- England, 
men who attained, according to the national biographer's esti- 
mate, the level of distinction entitling them to biographic 

A 



2 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

commemoration were in the sixteenth century thrice as numer- 
ous as those who reached that level in the fourteenth or fif- 
teenth century. 

The number of distinguished men which a country pro- 
duces depends to some extent, but to some extent only, on 
Causes of * ts population. England of the sixteenth century 
distinctive wag more populous than England of the four- 
ment. teenth or fifteenth, but the increase of popula- 

tion is not as three to one, which is the rate of increase in 
the volume of distinctive achievement. Probably the four 
millions of the fifteenth century became five millions in the 
sixteenth, a rate of increase of twenty-five per cent., an in- 
finitesimal rate of increase when it is compared with the 
gigantic increase of three hundred per cent., which charac- 
terises the volume of distinctive achievement. One must, 
therefore, look outside statistics of population for the true 
cause of the fact that for every man who gained any sort of 
distinction in fifteenth century England, three men gained 
any sort of distinction in the sixteenth century. It is not 
to the numbers of the people that we need direct our atten- 
tion; it is to their spirit, to the working of their minds, to 
their outlook on life, to their opportunities of uncommon ex- 
perience that we must turn for a solution of our problem. 

Englishmen of the sixteenth century breathed a new 
atmosphere intellectually and spiritually. They came under 
The Re- a new stimulus, compounded of many elements; 

naissance. eacn Q f tnem new anQ i inspiring. To that stimulus 

must be attributed the sudden upward growth of distinctive 
achievement among them, the increase of the opportunities 
of famous exploits, and the consequent preservation from 
oblivion of more names of Englishmen than in any century 
before. The stimulus under which Englishmen came in the 
sixteenth century may be summed up in the familiar word 



THE SPIRIT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 3 

Renaissance. The main factor of the European Renaissance, 

of the New Birth of intellect, was a passion for extending 

the limits of human knowledge, and for employing man's 

capabilities to new and better advantage than of old. New 

curiosity was generated in regard to the dimensions of the 

material world. There was a boundless enthusiasm for the 

newly discovered art and literature of ancient Greece. Men 

were fired by a new resolve to make the best and not the 

worst of life upon earth. They were ambitious to cultivate 

as the highest good the idea of beauty. 

All the nations of Western Europe came under the sway 

of the mighty movement of the Renaissance, and although 

national idosyncrasies moulded and coloured its 

Unity 
development in each country, there was every- of the 

where close resemblance in the general effect. 
The intellectual restlessness and recklessness of sixteenth 
century England, with its literary productivity and yearn- 
ing for novelty and adventure, differed little in broad out- 
line, however much it differed in detail, from the intellectual 
life of sixteenth century France, Italy, Spain, or even Ger- 
many. It was the universal spirit of the Renaissance, and 
no purely national impulse, which produced in sixteenth 
century England that extended series of varied exploits on 
the part of Englishmen and Englishwomen, the like of which 
had not been known before in the history of our race. That 
series of exploits may be said to begin with the wonderful 
enlightenment of Sir Thomas More's Utopia, and to cul- 
minate in the achievements of Bacon and Shakespeare; 
sharply divided as was the form of Shakespeare's work from 
that of Bacon, each was in spirit the complement of the 
other. 

Bacon ranks in eminence only second to Shakespeare 
among the English sons of the Renaissance, and his Latin 



4 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

apophthegm, ' nam ipsa scientia potestas est ' — ' for know- 
ledge is power ' — might be described as the watchword 

of the intellectual history of England, as of 
ledge is all Western Europe, in the sixteenth century. 

The true sons of the Renaissance imagined that 
unrestricted study of the operations of nature, life, and 
thought could place at their command all the forces which 
moved the world. The Renaissance student's faith was 
that of Marlowe's Faustus: 

' Oh, what a world of profit and delight, 
Of power, of honour, and omnipotence, 
Is promised to the studious artisan ! 
All things that move between the quiet poles 
Shall be at my command; emperors and kings 
Are but obeyed in their several provinces; 
But his dominion that exceeds in this, 
Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man.' ' 

Knowledge was the ever present quest. Study yielded ' god- 
like recompense,' which was worthy of any exertion. Men 
drank deep of the fountains of knowledge and were still 
insatiate. Extravagant conceptions were bred of the capa- 
bilities of man's intellect which made it easy of belief that 
omniscience was ultimately attainable. 



Here and there a painful scholar of the Renaissance was 
content to seek knowledge in one direction only; such an 
Width of one cheerfully forewent the joys of life in the 
outlook. hope of mastering in all minuteness a single 
branch of learning, or of science. But the meticulous scholar 
was not typical of the epoch. The children of the Renais- 
sance scorned narrowness of outlook. They thirsted for 
1 Marlowe, Faustus, Sc. i. 54 sq. 



(/ 



THE SPIRIT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 5 

universal knowledge; they pursued with equal eagerness prac- 
tice and theory. Natural science was not divorced from 
literature. The study of mathematics was a fit pursuit for 
the artist. The greatest painter of the age, Leonardo da 
Vinci, was also poet, mathematician, engineer, expert indeed 
in all branches of physical science. The poet and the scholar 
were ambitious to engage in affairs of the world — in war or 
politics. It was no part of a man, however richly endowed 
by genius, to avoid the active business of life. Dialecticians 
of the time credited all goals of human endeavour with 
inherent unity. They repeatedly argued, for example, that 
skill with the pen was the proper complement of skill with 
the sword. Poetry, according to Sir Philip Sidney, an ad- 
mirable representative of Renaissance aspirations, was the 
rightful ' companion of camps,' and no soldier could safely 
neglect the military teachings of Homer. Avowed specialism 
was foreign to the large temper of the times. Versatility of 
interest and experience was the accepted token of human 
excellence. 

There are obvious disadvantages in excessive distribution of 
mental energy. The products of diversified endeavour are 

commonly formless, void, and evanescent. But the „, 

J ' Checks on 

era of the Renaissance had such abundant stores distribu- 
tion of 
of intellectual energy that, in spite of all that was mental 

dissipated in the vain quest of omniscience, there 
remained enough to vitalise particular provinces of endeavour 
with enduring and splendid effect. The men of the Re- 
naissance had reserves of strength which enabled them to 
master more or less specialised fields of work, even while 
they winged vague and discursive flights through the whole 
intellectual expanse. Leonardo da Vinci was an excellent 
mathematician and poet, but despite his excellence in these 
directions, his supreme power was concentrated on painting. 



6 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

Prodigal as seemed the expenditure of intellectual effort, 
there was a practical economy in its application. In the 
result its ripest fruit was stimulating and lasting, more stim- 
ulating and lasting than any which came of the more rigid 
specialism of later epochs. 

More and Ralegh, Sidney and Spenser, Bacon and Shake- 
speare, all pertinently illustrate the versatility of the age, 
the bold digressiveness of its intellectual and im- 
of great aginative endeavour. To varying extents omnis- 

men of the cience was the foible of all and carried with it 
epoch. .^e inevitable penalties. Each set foot in more 

numerous and varied tracts of knowledge than any one man 
could thoroughly explore. They treated of many subjects, 
of the real significance of which they obtained only the faint- 
est and haziest glimpse. The breadth of their intellectual 
ambitions at times impoverished their achievement. The 
splendid gifts of Sidney and Ralegh were indeed largely 
wasted in too wide and multifarious a range of work. They 
did a strange variety of things to admiration, but failed to 
do the one thing of isolated pre-eminence which might have 
rewarded efficient concentration of effort. Shakespeare's in- 
tellectual capacity seems as catholic in range as Leonardo 
da Vinci's, and laws that apply to other men hardly apply 
to him, but there were tracts of knowledge, outside even 
Shakespeare's province, on which he trespassed unwisely. 
His handling of themes of law, geography, and scholarship, 
proves that in his case, as in that of smaller men, there were 
limits of knowledge beyond which it was perilous for him 
to stray. With greater insolence Bacon wrote of astronomy 
without putting himself to the trouble of apprehending the 
solar system of Copernicus, and misinterpreted other branches 
of science from lack of special knowledge. But in the case 
of Bacon and Shakespeare, such errors are spots on the sun. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 7 

As interpreter in drama of human nature Shakespeare has 
no rival; nor indeed among prophets of science has any 
other shown Bacon's magnanimity or eloquence. Although 
nature had amply endowed them with the era's universality 
of intellectual interests, she had also given them the power 
of demonstrating the full force of their rare genius in a 
particular field of effort. It was there that each reached 
the highest pinnacle of glory. 



in 

In a sense the sixteenth century was an age of transition, 
of transition from the ancient to the modern world, from 
the age of darkness and superstition to the age of 
light and scientific knowledge. A mass of newly tional 

& & J aspect of 

discovered knowledge lay at its disposal, but so the 

century. 
large a mass that succeeding centuries had to be 

enlisted in the service of digesting it and co-ordinating it. 
When the sixteenth century opened, the aspects of human 
life had recently undergone revolution. The old established 
theories of man and the world had been refuted, and much 
time was required for the evolution of new theories that 
should be workable, and fill the vacant places. The new 
problems were surveyed with eager interest and curiosity, 
but were left to the future for complete solution. The scien- 
tific spirit, which is the life of the modern world, was con- 
ceived in the sixteenth century; it came to birth later, 
f The causes of the intellectual awakening which distin- 
guished sixteenth century Europe lie on the surface. Its 
primary mainsprings are twofold. On the one p r i mary 
hand a distant past had been suddenly unveiled, £f ^he 3 
and there had come to light an ancient literature awakening. 
and an ancient philosophy which proved the human intellect 



8 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

to possess capacities hitherto unimagined. On the other 
hand, the dark curtains which had hitherto restricted man's 
view of the physical world to a small corner of it were torn 
asunder, and the strange fact was revealed that that which 
had hitherto been regarded by men as the whole sphere of 
physical life and nature, was in reality a mere fragment of 
a mighty universe of which there had been no previous 
conception. 

Of the two revelations — that of man's true intellectual 
capacity and that of the true extent of his physical environ- 
The priority ment — the intellectual revelation came first. The 
intellectual physical revelation followed at no long interval, 
revelation. jj. wag an accidental conjuncture of events. But 
each powerfully reacted on the other, and increased its fer- 
tility of effect. 

It was the discovery anew by Western Europe of classical 
Greek literature and philosophy which was the spring of the 
Thedis- intellectual revelation of the Renaissance. That 

G°reek y ° discovery was begun in the fourteenth century, 
literature ■ w } ien Greek subjects of the falling Byzantine em- 
sopny. pj re brought across the Adriatic manuscript memo- 

rials of Greek intellectual culture. But it was not till the 
final overthrow of the Byzantine empire by the Turks that 
all that survived of the literary art of Athens was driven 
westward in a flood, and the whole range of Greek enlight- 
enment — the highest enlightenment that had yet dawned in 
the human mind — lay at the disposal of Western Europe. 
It was then there came for the first time into the modern 
world the feeling for form, the frank delight in life and 
the senses, the unrestricted employment of the reason, with 
every other enlightened aspiration that was enshrined in 
Attic literature and philosophy. Under the growing Greek 
influence, all shapes of literature and speculation, of poetry 



THE SPIRIT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 9 

and philosophy, sprang into new life in Italy during the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the sixteenth cen- 
tury the torch was handed on by Italy to Spain, 

The 
France, Germany, and England. In each of those Italian 

iiiii i • i.ii influence, 

countries the light developed in accord with the 

national idiosyncrasy, but in none of them did it wholly 
lose the Italian hue, which it acquired at its first coming 
into Western Europe. It was mainly through Florence 
that the newly released stream of Hellenism flowed north- 
wards. 

From another quarter than the East came, a little later, 
the physical revelation which helped no less to mould the 

spirit of the era. Until the extreme end of the 
^ The 

fifteenth century, man knew nothing of the true physical 
i nii iiiir. revelation. 

shape or extent of the planet on which his life 

was cast. Fantastic theories of cosmography had been 
evolved, to which no genuine test had been applied. It 
was only in the year 1492 that Western Europe first learned 
its real place on the world's surface. The maritime ex- 
plorations which distinguished the decade 1490-1500 un- 
veiled new expanses of land and sea which reduced to 
insignificance the fragments of earth and heaven with which 
men had hitherto been familiar. 

To the west was brought to light for the first time a con- 
tinent larger than the whole area of terrestrial matter of 

which there was previous knowledge. To the 

Maritime 
south a Portuguese mariner discovered that Africa, explora- 

which was hitherto deemed to be merely a narrow 

strip of earth forming the southern boundary wall of the 

world, was a gigantic peninsula thrice the size of Europe, 

which stretched far into a southern ocean, into the same 

ocean which washed the shores of India. 

Such discoveries were far more than contributions to the 



10 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

science of geography. They were levers to lift the spirit 
The dis- °^ man i n t° unlooked-f or altitudes. They gave 

coveryof new conceptions not of earth alone, but of heaven. 

the solar * ' 

system. "phe skies were surveyed from points of view which 

had never yet been approached. A trustworthy study of 
the sun and stars became possible, and in the early years of 
the sixteenth century, a scientific investigator deduced from 
the rich array of new knowledge the startling truth that 
the earth, hitherto believed to be the centre of the universe, 
was only one — and that not the largest — of numerous planet- 
ary bodies rotating around the sun. If Columbus and Vasco 
da Gama, the discoverers of new lands and seas, deserve 
homage for having first revealed the true dimensions of 
the earth, to Copernicus is due the supreme honour of hav- 
ing taught the inhabitants of the earth to know their just 
place in the economy of the limitless firmament, over which 
they had hitherto fancied that they ruled. Whatever final 
purpose sun, planets and stars served, it was no longer 
possible to regard them as mere ministers of light and heat 
to men on earth. 

So stupendous was the expansion of the field of man's 
thought, which was generated by the efforts of Columbus and 

Copernicus, that only gradually was its full sig- 
The expan- 
sion of nificance apprehended. All branches of human 

endeavour and human speculation were ultimately 

remodelled in the light of the new physical revelation. The 

change was in the sixteenth century only beginning. But 

new ideals at once came to birth, and new applications of 

human energy suggested themselves in every direction. 

Dreamers believed that a new universe had been born, 

and that they were destined to begin a new manner of 

human life, which should be freed from the defects of the 

old. The intellectual revelation of a new culture power- 



THE SPIRIT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 11 

fully reinforced the physical revelation of new heavenly and 
earthly bodies. Assured hopes of human perfectibility per- 
meated human thought. The unveiling of the measureless 
expanse of physical nature made of man, physically con- 
sidered, a pigmy, but the spirited enterprises whereby the 
new knowledge was gained, combined with the revelation of 
the intellectual achievements of the past to generate the 
new faith that there lurked in man's mind a power which 
would ultimately yield him mastery of all the hidden forces 
of animate and inanimate nature. 



IV 

The mechanical invention of the printing press almost 
synchronised with the twofold revelation of new realms of 

thought and nature. The ingenious device came 

& & The inven- 

slowly to perfection, but as soon as it was per- tion of 
i> i • i i • i printing, 

iected, its employment spread with amazing rapid- 
ity under stress of the prevailing stir of discovery. The 
printing press greatly contributed to the dissemination of 
the ideas, which the movement of the Renaissance bred. 
Without the printing press the spread of the movement 
would have been slower and its character would have been 
less homogeneous. The books embodying the new spirit 
would not have multiplied so quickly nor travelled so far. 
The printing press distributed the fruit of the new spirit over 
the whole area of the civilised world. 

In every sphere of human aspiration through Western 
Europe the spirit of the Renaissance made its presence felt. 

New ideas invaded the whole field of human effort _ _ 

The Re- 
in a tumbling crowd, but many traditions of the naissance 

and the 
ancient regime, which the invasion threatened to Church of 

displace, stubbornly held their ground. Some vet- 
eran principles opposed the newcomers' progress and checked 



12 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

the growth of the New Birth of mind. The old Papal 
Church of Rome at the outset absorbed some of its teach- 
ing. The Roman Church did not officially discourage Greek 
learning and it encouraged exploration. There were hu- 
manists among the Popes of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 
turies. But the new spirit, in the fulness of time, demanded 
concessions of the Church which struck at the root of her 
being. The Church peremptorily refused to remodel her 
beliefs on the liberal lines that the new spirit laid down. 
Ultimately she declared open war on the enlightened thought 
of the Renaissance. Some essayed the subtle task of paying 
simultaneous allegiance to the two opposing forces. Eras- 
mus's unique fertility of mental resource enabled him to 
come near success in the exploit. But most found the at- 
tempt beyond their strength, and, like Sir Thomas More 
the greatest of those who tried to reconcile the irreconcil- 
able, sacrificed genius and life in the hopeless cause. 

The Papacy had more to fear from the passion for enquiry 
and criticism which the Renaissance evoked than from the 
The com- positive ideals and principles which it generated. 
Protest The great Protestant schism is sometimes repre- 
tantism. sented, without much regard for historic truth, as 

a calculated return to the primitive ideals of a distant past, 
as a deliberate revival of a divinely inspired system of re- 
ligion which had suffered eclipse. Its origin is more com- 
plex. It was mainly the outcome of a compromise with the 
critical temper, which the intellectual and physical revelations 
of the Renaissance imposed on men's mind. Protestantism in 
the garb in which it won its main triumph, was the con- 
tribution of Germany to the spiritual regeneration of the 
sixteenth century, and a Teutonic cloudiness of sentiment 
overhung its foundations. Protestantism ignored large tracts 
of the new teaching and a mass of the new ideas which the 



THE SPIRIT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 13 

Italian Renaissance brought to birth and cherished. But 
Protestants were eager to mould their belief in some limited 
agreement with the dictates of reason. They acknowledged, 
within bounds, the Renaissance faith in the power and right 
of the human intellect to grapple with the mysteries of 
nature. The dogmas and ceremonies of the old system which 
signally flouted reason were denounced and rejected. A 
narrow interpretation of the Renaissance theory of human 
perfectibility coloured new speculations as to the efficacy of 
divine grace. But Protestantism declined to take reason as 
its sole guide or object of worship. Protestantism was the 
fruit of a compromise between the old conception of faith 
and the new conception of reason. The compromise was 
widely welcomed by a mass of enquirers who, though moved 
by the spirit of the age, were swayed in larger degree by 
religious emotion, and cherished unshakable confidence in 
the bases of Christianity. But the Protestant endeavour to 
accommodate old and new ideas was not acceptable in all 
quarters. A bold minority in Italy, France and England, 
either tacitly or openly, spurned a compromise which was 
out of harmony with the genuine temper of the era. While 
Roman Catholicism fortified its citadels anew, and Protes- 
tantism advanced against them in battle array in growing 
strength, the free thought and agnosticism, which the un- 
alloyed spirit of the Renaissance generated, gained year by 
year fresh accession of force in every country of Western 
Europe. 

On secular literature the religious reformation, working 
within its normal limits, produced a far-reaching effect. The 
qualified desire for increase of knowledge, which Literary 
characterised the new religious creeds, widely ex- o^theT 06 
tended the first-hand study of the Holy Scriptures, Blble - 
which enshrined the title-deeds of Christianity. Transla- 



14 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

tions of the Bible into living tongues were encouraged by all 
Protestant reformers, and thereby Hebraic sublimity and in- 
tensity gained admission to much Renaissance literature. It 
was owing to such turn of events that there met, notably in 
the great literature of sixteenth century England, the so- 
lemnity of Hebraism, with the Hellenist love of beauty and 
form. 



The incessant clash of ideas — the ferment of men's thought 

— strangely affected the moral character of many leaders of 

the Renaissance in England no less than in Eu- 
The ethical 

paradox of rope. Life was lived at too high a pressure to 
maintain outward show of unity of purpose. A 
moral chaos often reigned in man's being and vice was en- 
tangled inextricably with virtue. 

Probably in no age did the elemental forces of good and 
evil fight with greater energy than in the sixteenth century 
The f° r the dominion of man's soul. Or rather, never 

eoocfand ^^ *he * wo f° rces make closer compact with each 
evil - other whereby they might maintain a joint occu- 

pation of the human heart. Men who were capable of the 
noblest acts of heroism were also capable of the most con- 
temptible acts of treachery. An active sense of loyalty to 
a throne seemed no bar to secret conspiracy against a sov- 
ereign's life. When Shakespeare described in his sonnets 
the two spirits — ' the better angel ' and ' the worser spirit,' 
both of whom claimed his allegiance — he repeated a conceit 
which is universal in the poetry of the Renaissance, and 
represents with singular accuracy the ethical temper of the 
age. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 15 

Among the six men whose life and work are portrayed in 
this volume, three — More, Bacon, and Ralegh — 

° The major 

forcibly illustrate the mutually inconsistent char- paradox of 

More, 

acteristics with which the spirit of the Renaissance Bacon, and 

Ralegh. 

often endowed one and the same man. More, who 

proved himself in the Utopia an enlightened champion of the 
freedom of the intellect, and of religious toleration, laid 
down his life as a martyr to superstition and to the principle 
of authority (in its least rational form) in matters of re- 
ligion. Ralegh who preached in his Historie of the World 
and in philosophic tracts a most elevated altruism and phi- 
losophy of life, neglected the first principles of honesty in 
a passionate greed of gold. Bacon, who rightly believed 
himself to be an inspired prophet of science, and a clear- 
eyed champion of the noblest progress in human thought, 
stooped to every petty trick in order to make money and a 
worldly reputation. 

Happily the careers of the three remaining subjects — Sid- 
ney, Spenser, and Shakespeare — are paradoxical in a minor 
degree. But the paradox which is inherent in the Tn e minor 
spirit of the time cast its glamour to some extent sjdnev* 
even over them. The poets Sidney and Spenser, Sp d n «h r 'k - 
who preached with every appearance of conviction speare. 
the fine doctrine that the poets' crown is alone worthy the 
poets' winning, strained their nerves until they broke in 
death, in pursuit of such will-o'-the-wisps as political or 
military fame. Shakespeare, with narrow personal experi- 
ences of life, and with worldly ambitions of commonplace 
calibre, mastered the whole scale of human aspiration and 
announced his message in language which no other mortal 
has yet approached in insight or harmony. Shakespeare's 
career stands apart from that of his fellows and defies 
methods of analysis which are applicable to theirs. But he, 



16 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

no less than they, was steeped in the spirit of the Renais- 
sance. In him that spirit reached its apotheosis. With it, 
however, there mingled in his nature a mysteriously potent 
element, which belonged in like measure in individual minds 
to none other. The magic of genius has worked miracles 
in many epochs, but it never worked greater miracle than 
when it fused itself in Shakespeare's being with the ripe 
temper of Renaissance culture. 




Sir Thomas More 



AT THE AGE OF 49. 

From the portrait by Holbein in the possession of Edward H nth, Esq. 



II 

SIR THOMAS MORE 

' Thomae Mori ingenio quid unquam finxit natura vel mollius, 
vel dulcius, vel felicius?' — [Than the temper of Thomas More 
did nature ever frame aught gentler, sweeter, or happier?] 
Erasmi Epistolae, Tom. in., No. xiv. 

[Bibliography. — The foundation for all lives of Sir Thomas 
More is the charming personal memoir by his son-in-law, Wil- 
liam Roper, which was first printed at Paris in 1626, and after 
passing through numerous editions was recently reissued in 
the 'King's Classics.' Cresacre More, Sir Thomas' great- 
grandson, a pious Catholic layman, published a fuller biography 
about 1631; this was reissued for the last time in 1828. The 
Letters of Erasmus, Erasmi Epistolae, Leyden 1706, which J. A. 
Froude has charmingly summarised, shed invaluable light on 
More's character. Mr. Frederic Seebohm's Oxford Reformers 
(Colet, Erasmus and More) vividly describes More in relation 
to the religious revolution of his day. The latest complete 
biography by the Rev. W. H. Hutton, B.D., appeared in 1895. 
The classical English translation of More's Utopia, which was 
first published in 1551, has lately been re-edited by Mr. Churton 
Collins for the Oxford University Press. More's English works 
have not been reprinted since they were first collected in 1557. 
The completest collection of his Latin works was issued in Ger- 
many in 1689]. 



Sir Thomas More was a Londoner. He was born in the 

heart of the capital, in Milk Street, Cheapside, not far from 

Bread Street, where Milton was born more than a 

More's 
century later. The year of More's birth carries birth, 7th 

us back to 1478, to the end of the Middle Ages, to 

the year when the Renaissance was looming on England's 

intellectual horizon, but was as yet shedding a vague and 

B 17 



18 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

flickering light. The centre of European culture was in 
distant Florence, and England's interests at home were still 
mainly absorbed by civil strife. Though by 1478 the acutest 
phases of that warfare were passed, it was not effectually 
stemmed till Henry vn. triumphed at Bosworth Field and 
More was seven years old. Much else was to change before 
opportunity for great achievement should be offered More 
in his maturity. 

It was in association with men and movements for the 
most part slightly younger than himself that More first 
figured on life's stage. He set forth on life in the vanguard 
of the advancing army of contemporary progress, but des- 
tiny decreed that death should find him at the head of the 
opposing forces of reaction. 

Of the leading actors in the drama in which More was to 
play his great part, two were at the time of his birth unborn, 

and two were in infancy. Luther, the practical 
Senior of 

Luther and leader of the religious revolution by which More's 
Henry viii. ii-itt 

career was moulded, did not come into the world 

until More was five; nor until he was thirteen was there born 
Henry vm., the monarch to whom he owed his martyrdom. 
To only two of the men with whom he conspicuously worked 

was he junior. Erasmus, one of the chief emanci- 
The junior 

of Erasmus pators of the reason, from whom More derived 
andWolsey. ... . . 

abundant inspiration, was his senior by eleven 

years; Wolsey, the political priest, who was to give England 
ascendancy in Europe and to offer More the salient oppor- 
tunities of his career, was seven years his senior. 

One spacious avenue to intellectual progress was indeed 

in readiness for More and his friends from the 
The inven- 
tion of outset. One commanding invention, which exerted 

unbounded influence — the introduction into Eng- 
land by Caxton of the newly invented art of printing — 






SIR THOMAS MORE 19 

was almost coincident with More's birth. A year earlier 
Caxton had set up a printing-office in Westminster, and pro- 
duced for the first time an English printed book there. That 
event had far-reaching consequences on the England of 
More's childhood. The invention of printing was to the six- 
teenth century what the invention of steam locomotion was 
to the nineteenth. 

The birth in England of the first of the two great in- 
fluences which chiefly stimulated men's intellectual develop- 
ment, during More's adolescence, was almost simultaneous 
with the introduction of printing. Greek learning and lit- 
erature were first taught in the country at Oxford in the 
seventh decade of the fifteenth century. It was not till the 
last decade of that century that European explorers set foot 
in the New World of America, and by compelling men to 
reconsider their notion of the universe and pre-existing 
theories of the planet to which they were born, completed 
the inauguration of the new era of which More was the 
earliest English hero. 



ii 

More's family belonged to the professional classes, whose 
welfare depends for the most part on no extraneous advan- 
tages of inherited rank or wealth, but on personal M ore ' s 
ability and application. His father was a bar- father - 
rister who afterwards became a judge. Of humble origin 
he acquired a modest fortune. His temperament was singu- 
larly modest and gentle, but he was blessed with a quiet 
sense of humour which was one of his son's most notable 
inheritances. The father had a wide experience of matri- 
mony, having been thrice married, and he is credited with 
the ungallant remark that a man taking a wife is like one 



20 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

putting his hand into a bag of snakes with one eel among 
them; he may light on the eel, but it is a hundred chances 
to one that he shall be stung by a snake. 

Of the great English public schools only two — Winchester 
and Eton — were in existence when More was a boy, and they 
At school nac ^ n0 * y e ^ ac(nure d a national repute. Up to 
in London, ^e age of thirteen More attended a small day 
school — the best of its kind in London. It was St. An- 
thony's school in Threadneedle Street, and was attached 
to St. Anthony's Hospital, a religious and charitable founda- 
tion for the residence of twelve poor men. Latin was the 
sole means and topic of instruction. 

Cardinal Morton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was wont 
to admit to his household boys of good family, to wait on 
In the him, and to receive instruction from his chap- 

the^Arch- lains. More's father knew the Archbishop and 
bishop. requested him to take young Thomas More into 

his service. The boy's wit and towardness delighted the 
Ai-chbishop. ' At Christmastide he would sometimes sud- 
denly step in among the players and masquers who made 
merriment for the Archbishop, and, never studying for the 
matter, would extemporise a part of his own presently among 
them, which made the lookers-on more sport than all the 
players besides.' The Archbishop, impressed by the lad's 
alertness of intellect, ' would often say of him to the nobles 
that divers times dined with him " This child here writing 
at the table, whoever shall live to see it, will prove a 
marvellous man." ' 

The Archbishop arranged with More's father to send him 

to the University of Oxford, and, when little more than 

fourteen, he entered Canterbury Hall, a collegiate 
At Oxford. -.ill. 

establishment which was afterwards absorbed in 

Cardinal Wolsey's noble foundation of Christ Church. 



SIR THOMAS MORE 21 

More's allowance while an Oxford student was small. 
Without money to bestow on amusements, he spent his time 
in study to the best advantage. At Oxford More came under 
the two main influences that dominated his life. 

Oxford has often been called by advanced spirits in Eng- 
land the asylum of lost causes, but those who call her so 

have studied her history superficially. Oxford is 

The 

commonly as ready to offer a home to new intel- influence 

of Oxford. 

lectual movements as faithfully to harbour old 

causes. Oxford has a singular faculty of cultivating the old 
and the new side by side with a parallel enthusiasm. The 
university, when More knew it, was proving its capacity in 
both the old and the new directions. It was giving the first 
public welcome in England to the new learning, to the 
revival of classical, and notably of Greek, study. It was 
helping to introduce the modern English world to Attic lit- 
erature, the most artistically restrained, the most brilliantly 
perspicuous body of literature that has yet been contrived 
by the human spirit. Greek had been lately taught there 
for the first time by an Italian visitor, while several Oxford 
students had just returned from Italy burdened with the 
results of the new study. More came under the travelled 
scholars' sway, and his agile mind was filled with zeal to 
assimilate the stimulating fruits of pagan intellect. He read 
Greek and Latin authors with avidity, and essayed original 
compositions in their tongues. His scholarship was never 
very exact, but the instinct of genius revealed to him almost 
at a glance the secrets of the classical words. His Latin 
verse was exceptionally facile and harmonious. French came 
to him with little trouble, and, in emulation of the fre- 
quenters of the Athenian Academy, he sought recreation in 
music, playing with skill on the viol and the flute. 

His conservative father, who knew no Greek, was alarmed 



22 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

by his son's enthusiasm for learning, which did not come 
within his own cognisance. He feared its influence on the 
boy's religious orthodoxy, and deemed it safer to transfer 
A student n ^ m *° ^ e s ^ n ^J °f ^ aw - Recalling him from 
of law. Oxford, he sent him to an Inn of Court in Lon- 

don before he was twenty, to pursue his own legal profes- 
sion. More, with characteristic complacency, adapted him- 
self to his new environment. Within a year or two he proved 
himself an expert and a learned lawyer. 

But his father had misunderstood Oxford, and had mis- 
understood his son. At the same time as the youth imbibed 

at Oxford a passion for the new learning, he had 
Spiritual ,,, . t t ■,. • 

question- also imbibed a passion there lor the old religion. 

Oxford, with its past traditions of unswerving 
fidelity to the Catholic Church, had made More a religious 
enthusiast at the same time as her recent access of intel- 
lectual enlightenment had made him a zealous humanist. 
While he was a law student in London, the two influences 
fought for supremacy in his mind. He extended his know- 
ledge of Greek, making the acquaintance of other Oxford 
students with like interests to his own. Colet, Linacre, Gro- 
cyn, and Lily, all of whom had drunk deep of the new 
culture of the Renaissance, became his closest associates. He 
engaged with them in friendly rivalry in rendering epigrams 
from the Greek anthology into Latin, and he read for himself 
the works of the great Florentine humanist and mystical 
philosopher, Pico della Mirandola, who had absorbed the 
idealistic teachings of Plato. But spiritual questionings at 
the same time disturbed him. Every day he devoted many 
hours to spiritual exercises. He fasted, he prayed, he kept 
vigils, he denied himself sleep, he wore a shirt of hair next 
his skin, he practised all manner of austerities. He gave 
lectures on St. Augustine's Christian ideal of a ' City of 



SIR THOMAS MORE 23 

God ' in a London city church ; he began to think that the 
priesthood was his vocation. 

But before he was twenty-five he had arrived at a dif- 
ferent conclusion. He resolved to remain at the bar and in 
secular life; he thought he had discovered a via media 
whereby he could maintain allegiance to his two-fold faith 
in Catholicism and in humanism. The breadth of his in- 
tellect permitted him the double enthusiasm, although the 
liability of conflict between the two was always great. While 
moderating his asceticism, he continued scrupulously regular 
in all the religious observances expected of a pious Catholic. 
But he pursued at the same time his study of Lucian and 
the Greek anthology, of Pico della Mirandola and the phi- 
losophic humanists of modern Italy. He made, to his own 
satisfaction, a working reconciliation between the old religion 
and the new learning, and imagined that he could devote 
his life to the furtherance of both causes at once. There 
was in the resolve a fatal miscalculation of the force of his 
religious convictions. There was inconsistency in the en- 
deavour to serve two masters. But miscalculation and in- 
consistency were the moving causes of the vicissitudes of 
Thomas More's career. 



in 

Probably the main cause of More's resolve to adhere to 
the paths of humanism, when his religious fervour inclined 
him to abandon them, was his introduction to the 

The influ- 

great scholar of the European Renaissance, Eras- ence of 

Erasmus, 
mus, who came on a first visit to England about 

the year that More reached his majority. Erasmus, a 
Dutchman about eleven years More's senior, became a first- 
rate Greek scholar when a student at Paris, and gained a 



24 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

thorough mastery of all classical learning and literature. 
Taking priest's orders he was soon a learned student of 
divinity, and an enlightened teacher alike of profane and 
sacred letters. His native temperament preserved him from 
any tincture of pedantry, and implanted in him a perennially 
vivid interest in every aspect of human endeavour and ex- 
perience. Above all things he was a penetrating critic — 
a critic of life as well as of literature, and he was able 
to express his critical views with an airiness, a charm, a 
playfulness of style, which secured for his conclusions a 
far wider acceptance than was possible to a more formal, 
more serious, and more crabbed presentation. He was an 
adept in the use of banter and satire, when exposing the 
abuses and absurdities whether of religious or secular society 
of his time. But he met with the usual fate of independent 
and level-headed critics to whom all extremes are obnoxious, 
and whose temperament forbids them to identify themselves 
with any distinctly organised party or faction. In the re- 
ligious conflicts of the hour Erasmus stood aloof from Pro- 
testant revolutionaries like Luther, and from Orthodox cham- 
pions at the Paris Sorbonne of the ancient faith of papal 
Rome. In the struggle over the progress of humanistic 
learning, he treated with equal disdain those who set their 
faces against the study of pagan writers, and those who 
argued that the human intellect should be exclusively nur- 
tured on servile imitation of classical style. As a conse- 
quence Erasmus was denounced by all parties, but he was 
unmoved by clamour, and remained faithful to his idiosyn- 
crasy to the last. In the era of the Renaissance he did as 
much as any man to free humanity from the bonds of super- 
stition, and to enable it to give free play to its reasoning 
faculties. 

Erasmus spent much time in England while More's life 



SIR THOMAS MORE 25 

was at its prime, and the two men became the closest of 

friends. Erasmus at once acknowledged More's 

Erasmus's 
fascination. ' My affection for the man is so friendship 

for More, 
great/ he wrote, in the early days of their ac- 
quaintance, ' that if he bade me dance a hornpipe, I should 
do at once what he bid me.' Until death separated them, 
their love for one another knew no change. Erasmus's en- 
lightened influence and critical frankness offered the stimulus 
that More's genius needed to sustain his faith in humanism 
at the moment that it was threatened by his religious zeal. 

Neither More's spiritual nor his intellectual interests de- 
tached him from practical affairs. His progress at the bar 

was rapid, and after the customary manner of Eng- 

At the 
lish barristers, he sought to improve his worldly bar and in 
... . . ... -ii. Parliament. 

position by going into politics and obtaining a seat 

in Parliament. He was a bold and independent speaker, and 
quickly made his mark by denouncing King Henry vn/s heavy 
taxation of the people. A ready ear was given to his argu- 
ment by fellow members of the House of Commons, and they 
negatived, at his suggestion, one of the many royal appeals 
for money. The King angrily expressed asonishment that a 
beardless boy should disappoint his purpose, and he invented 
a cause of quarrel with More's father by way of revenge. 

IV 

Meanwhile More married. As a wooer he seems to have 
been more philosophic than ardent. He made the acquaint- 
ance of an Essex gentleman named Colte, who 
had three daughters, and the second daughter, 
whom he deemed ' the fairest and best favoured,' moved 
affection in More. But the young philosopher curbed his 
passion ; he ' considered that it would be both great grief 
and some shame also to the eldest to see her younger sister 



26 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

preferred before her in marriage.' Accordingly ' of a certain 
pity ' he ' framed his fancy towards ' the eldest daughter, 
Jane. He married her in 1505. The union, if the fruit of 
compassion, was most satisfactory in result. His wife was 
very young, and quite uneducated, but More was able, ac- 
cording to his friend Erasmus, to shape her character after 
his own pattern. Teaching her books and music, he made 
her a true companion. Acquiring a house in the best part 
of the City of London, in Bucklersbury, More delighted in 
his new domestic life. He reckoned ' the enjoyment of his 
family a necessary part of the business of the man who does 
not wish to be a stranger in his own house,' and such leisure 
as his professional work allowed him was happily divided 
between the superintendence of his household and literary 
study. Unluckily his wife died six years after marriage. 
She left him with a family of four children. More lost no 
His second time in supplying her place. His second wife 
Wlfe * was a widow, who, he would often say with a 

laugh, was neither beautiful nor well educated. She lacked 
one desirable faculty in a wife, the ability to appreciate her 
husband's jests. But she had the virtues of a good house- 
wife, and ministered to More's creature comforts. He ruled 
her, according to his friend Erasmus, with caresses and with 
jokes the point of which she missed. Thus he kept her sharp 
tongue under better control than sternness and assertion of 
authority could achieve. With characteristic sense of humour, 
More made her learn harp, cithern, guitar and (it is said) 
flute, and practise in his presence every day. 

More, after his second marriage, removed from the bustling 
centre of London to what was then the peaceful riverside 
Settlement hamlet of Chelsea. There he lived in simple 
at Chelsea. patriarchal fashion, surrounded by his children. 
Ostentation was abhorrent to him, but he quietly gratified 



SIR THOMAS MORE 27 

his love for art and literature by collecting pictures and 

books. 

More prospered in his profession. The small legal post 

of Under-sheriff, which he obtained from the Corporation of 

London, brought him into relations with the mer- 

' & Under- 

chants, who admired his quickness of wit. The Sheriff of 

London. 
Government was contemplating a new commercial 

treaty with Flanders, and required the assistance of a repre- 
sentative of London's commercial interest with a view to 
improving business relations with the Flemings. More was 
recommended for the post by a city magnate to Henry vin.'s 
great Minister, Cardinal Wolsey, and he received the ap- 
pointment. Thus, not long after he had fallen under the 
sway of the greatest intellectual leader of the day, Erasmus, 
did he first come under the notice of the great political 
chieftain. 



But for the present Wolsey and More worked out their 
destinies apart. The duties of the new office required More 

to leave England. For the first time in his life he 

First visit 

was brought face to face with Continental culture, to the 

Continent. 

He chiefly spent his time in the cities of Bruges, 

Brussels and Antwerp, all of which were northern strong- 
holds of the art and literature of the Italian Renaissance. 
More's interests were widened and stimulated by the en- 
lightened society into which he was thrown. But he had 
his private difficulties. His salary was small for a man with 
a growing family, and he humorously expressed regret at the 
inconsiderateness of his wife and children in failing to fast 
from food in his absence. 

But, however ill More was remunerated at the moment. 



28 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

this first visit to the Continent invigorated, if it did not 

create, a new ideal of life, and impelled him to 
Social re- 
creation at offer his fellow-men a new counsel of perfection, 

which, although it had little bearing on the practi- 
cal course of his own affairs, powerfully affected his reputa- 
tion with posterity. At Antwerp More met a thoroughly 
congenial companion, the great scholar of France and friend 
of Erasmus, Peter Giles or Egidius. Versatility of interest 
was a mark of Renaissance scholarship. With Giles, More 
discussed not merely literary topics but also the contempo- 
rary politics and the social conditions of England and the 
Continent. In the course of the debates the notion of 
sketching an imaginary commonwealth, which should be 
freed from the defects of existing society, entered More's 
brain. 

VI 

From Antwerp More brought back the first draft of his 

Utopia. That draft ultimately formed the second book of 

the completed treatise. But the first and shorter 
First draft , 

of the book which he penned after his return home merely 

served the purpose of a literary preface to the 

full and detailed exposition of the political and social ideals 

which his foreign tour had conjured up in his active mind. 

Increasing practice at the Bar, and the duties of his 
judicial office in the City, delayed the completion of the 
Utopia, which was not published till the end of 1516, a year 
after More's return. 

The Utopia of Sir Thomas More is the main monument 
of his genius. It is as admirable in literary form as it is 

original in thought. It displays a mind revelling 
Detach- 
ment of the in the power of detachment from the sentiment 
Utopia. 

and the prejudices which prevailed in his personal 

environment. To a large extent this power of detachment 



SIR THOMAS MORE 29 

was bred of his study of Greek literature. Plato, the great 
philosopher of Athens, had sketched in detail an imaginary 
republic which was governed solely by regard for the moral 
and material welfare of the citizens. To Plato's republic is 
traceable More's central position. Equality in all things is 
the one and only way to ensure the well-being of a com- 
munity. All men should enjoy equal possessions and equal 
opportunities. On that revolutionary text, which defied the 
established bases of contemporary society, More preached 
a new and unconventional discourse which ranks with the 
supreme manifestations of intellectual fertility. 



VII 

The prefatory book of the Utopia is a vivid piece of fiction 
which Defoe could not have excelled. More relates how he 
accidentally came upon his scholarly friend Peter The Firgt 
Giles in the streets of Antwerp, in conversation Book - 
with an old sailor named Raphael Hythlodaye. The sailor 
had lately returned from a voyage to the New World under 
the command of Amerigo Vespucci, America's eponymous 
hero. Raphael had been impressed by the beneficent forms 
of government which prevailed in the New World. He 
had also visited England, and had noted social evils there 
which called for speedy redress. The degradation of the 
masses was sapping the strength of the country. Capital 
punishment was the invariable penalty for robbery, and it 
was difficult to supply sufficient gibbets whereon to hang 
the offenders. The prevalence of crime Raphael assigned 
to want of employment among the poor, to the idleness and 
the luxury of the well-to-do, to the recklessness with which 
the rulers engaged in war, and to the readiness with which 
merchants were converting arable land into pasture; villages 



30 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

were laid waste and the opportunity of labour was greatly 
diminished in order to fill the coffers of capitalists. Dis- 
charged soldiers, troops of dismissed retainers from the 
households of the nobility and gentry, who, after a life of 
idleness, were thrown on their own resources, ploughmen and 
peasants, whose services were no longer required by the 
sheep-farmers, perilously swelled the ranks of the unem- 
ployed and made thieving the only means of livelihood for 
thousands of the population. A more even distribution of 
wealth was necessary to the country's salvation. To this 
end were necessary the enjoyment of the blessings of peace, 
restrictions on the cupidity of the capitalist, improved edu- 
cation of the humbler classes, and the encouragement of new 
industries. Crime could be restrained by merciful laws more 
effectually than by merciless statutes. 

This fearless and spirited exposure of the demoralisation 
of English society, which is set in the mouth of the sailor 

from the world beyond the Atlantic, potently illus- 
The ideal 

of the New trates the stimulus to thought in the social and 
World. , 

political sphere which sprang from the recent 

maritime discoveries. The abuses which time had fostered 
in the Old World could alone be dispersed by acceptance 
of the unsophisticated principles of the New World. The 
sailor's auditors eagerly recognise the worth of his sugges- 
tions, and the sailor promises to report to them the political 
and social institutions which are in vogue in the land of 
perfection across the seas. He had lived in such a coun- 
try. He had made his way to the island of Utopia when, 
on his last voyage, he had been left behind by his comrades 
at his own wish on the South American coast near Cape Frio, 
off Brazil. 

The second book of More's Utopia describes the ideal com- 
monwealth of this imaginary island of No-where (Ov roiros), 



SIR THOMAS MORE 31 

and in it culminate the hopes and aspirations of all Renais- 
sance students of current politics and society. The constitu- 
tion of the country is an elective monarchy, but the prince 

can be deposed if he falls under suspicion of seek- 

The Second 

ing to enslave the people. War is regarded as Book of the 

Utopia. 

inglorious, and no leagues or treaties with foreign 

powers are permitted. The internal economy is of an ex- 
ceptionally enlightened kind. The sanitary arrangements in 
towns are the best imaginable. The streets are broad and 
well watered. Every house has a garden. Slaughter-houses 
are placed outside the wall. Hospitals are organised on 
scientific principles. The isolation of persons suffering from 
contagious diseases is imperative. 

The mind is as wisely cared for as the body. All children 
whether girls or boys are thoroughly and wisely educated. 
They are apt to learn, and find much attraction in Care f 
Greek authors, even in Lucian's merry conceits the mind - 
and jests. At the same time labour is an universal condition 
of life. Every man has to work at a craft, as well as to devote 
some time each day to husbandry, but no human being is 
permitted to become a mere beast of burden. The hours of 
manual labour are strictly limited to six a day. A large 
portion of the people's leisure is assigned to intellectual pur- 
suits, to studies which liberalise the mind. Offenders against 
law and order are condemned to bondage. But redemption 
was assured bondmen when they gave satisfactory promise 
of mending their ways, and of making fit use of liberty. 

Contempt for silver and gold and precious stones is espe- 
cially characteristic of the Utopians. Diamonds and pearls 
are treated as children's playthings. Criminals Contempt 
are chained with golden fetters by way of indi- p °ecious 
eating the disrepute attaching to the metal. Am- metals - 
bassadors arriving in Utopia from other countries with golden 



32 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

chains about their necks, and wearing robes ornamented 

with pearls, are mistaken by the Utopians for degraded 

bondmen, who among the Utopians are wont to cherish in 

adult years a childish love for toys. 

To find happiness in virtuous and reasonable pleasure is 

the final aim of the Utopian scheme of life. The Utopians 

Utopian declare that ' the felicity of man ' consists in plea- 

philosophy. sure But • they think not > More addgj « f e i icity 

to consist in all pleasure but only in that pleasure that is 
good and honest.' They define virtue to be ' life ordered 
according to nature, and that we be hereunto ordained even 
of God. And that he doth follow the course of nature, 
who in desiring and refusing things is ruled by reason.' 
The watchword of Utopia declares reason and reason alone 
to be the safe guide of life. Even in the religious sphere, 
principles of reason's fashioning are carried to logical con- 
clusions without hesitation, or condition. 

The official religion of More's imaginary world is pure 
Pantheism. But differences on religious questions are per- 
Utopian mitted. The essence of the Utopian faith is ' that 

religion. there is a certain godly power unknown, far above 

the capacity and reach of man's wit, dispersed throughout 
all the world, not in bigness, but in virtue and power. Him 
they call Father of all. To Him alone they attribute the 
beginnings, the increasings, the proceedings, the changes, 
and the ends of all things. Neither give they any divine 
honours to any other than Him.' The state organises public 
worship of an elementary Pantheistic pattern. It only con- 
cerns itself with first principles about which differences of 
opinion are barely conceivable. In other regards differences 
of view are encouraged. 

Nowhere indeed has the great doctrine of religious tolera- 
tion been expounded with greater force or fulness than 



SIR THOMAS MORE 33 

in the Utopia. The bases of morality are duly safeguarded, 
but otherwise every man in Utopia is permitted to cherish 
without hindrance the religious belief that is adapted to his 
idiosyncracy. Reason, the sole test of beneficent rule, justi- 
fies no other provision. 

vm 

More wrote his romance of Utopia in Latin, and addressed 
it to the educated classes of Europe. It was published at 
the end of 1516, at Louvain, a prominent centre jjtopia 
of academic learning. A new edition came four ^^ 
months later from a famous press of Paris, and Continent. 
then within a year the scholar printer, Froben of Basle, 
produced a luxurious reissue under the auspices of Erasmus 
and with illustrations by Erasmus's friend and chief ex- 
ponent of Renaissance art in Germany, Hans Holbein. The 
brightest influences of the new culture pronounced fervent 
benedictions on the printed book, and the epithets which 
the publishers bestowed on its title-page, ' aureus,' ' salutaris/ 
' festivus ' — golden, healthful, joyous — were well adapted to 
a manifesto from every sentence of which radiated the light 
and hope of social progress. 

None who read the Utopia can deny that its author drank 
deep of the finest spirit of his age. None can question that 
he foresaw the main lines along which the political and 
social ideals of the Renaissance would develop in the future. 
There is hardly a scheme of social or political reform that 
has been enunciated in later epochs of which there is no 
definite adumbration in More's pages. But he who passes 
hastily from the speculations of More's Utopia to the record 
of More's subsequent life and writings will experience a 
strange shock. Nowhere else is he likely to be faced by 
so sharp a contrast between precept and practice, between 

C 



34 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

enlightened and vivifying theory in the study and adherence 

in the work-a-day world to the unintelligent routine of 

bigotry and obscurantism. By the precept and theory of his 

Utopia, More cherished and added power to the new light. 

By his practical conduct in life he sought to extinguish the 

illuminating forces to which his writing offered fuel. 

The facts of the situation are not open to question. More 

was long associated in the government of his country on 

principles which in the Utopia he condemned. He 
Contrast r r r 

between acquiesced in a system of rule which rested on 
precepts inequalities of rank and wealth, and made no 
personal endeavour to diminish poverty. In the sphere of 
prac ice. religion More's personal conduct most conspicu- 
ously conflicted with the aspirations of his Utopians. So 
far from regarding Pantheism, or any shape of undogmatic 
religion, as beneficial, he lost no opportunity of denouncing 
it as sinful; he regarded the toleration in practical life of 
differences on religious questions as sacrilegious. He ac- 
tively illustrated more than once his faith in physical coercion 
or punishment as a means of bringing men to a sense of the 
only religion which seemed to him to be true. Into his 
idealistic romance he had introduced a saving clause to the 
effect that he was not at one with his Utopians at all points. 
He gave no indication that by the conduct of his personal 
life he ranked himself with their strenuous foes. 

The discrepancy is not satisfactorily accounted for by the 
theory that his political or religious views suffered change 

after the Utopia was written. No man adhered 
The Utopia r 

a dream more rigidly through life to the religious tenets 

that he had adopted in youth. From youth to age 

his dominant hope was to fit himself for the rewards in a 

future life of honest championship of the Catholic Christian 

faith. No man was more consistently conservative in his 



SIR THOMAS MORE 35 

attitude to questions of current politics. He believed in the 
despotic principle of government and the inevitableness of 
class distinctions. But the breadth of his intellectual temper 
admitted him also to regions of speculation which were be- 
yond the range of any established religious or political 
doctrines. He was capable of a detachment of mind which 
blinded him to the inconsistencies of his double part. The 
student of More's biography cannot set the Utopia in its 
proper place among More's achievements unless he treat it 
as proof of his mental sensitiveness to the finest issues of 
the era, as evidence of his gift of literary imagination, as 
an impressively fine play of fancy, which was woven by the 
writer far away from his own work-a-day world in a realm 
which was not bounded by facts or practical affairs, as they 
were known to him. Whatever the effects of More's imag- 
inings on readers, whatever their practical bearing in others' 
minds on actual conditions of social life, the Utopia was for 
its creator merely a vision, which melted into thin air in his 
brain as he stood face to face with the realities of life. 
When the dream ended, the brilliant pageant faded from his 
consciousness and left not a wrack behind. 

IX 

Very soon after the Utopia was written, More descended 
swiftly from speculative heights. His attention was absorbed 
by the religious revolution that was arising in Germany. He 
heard with alarm and incredulity of the attempt of Luther, 
the monk of Wittenberg, to reform the Church Dread 
by dissociating it from Rome. Like his friend Lutheran 
Erasmus, More was well alive to the defects in revolution. 
the administration of the Catholic Church. The ignorance 
of many priests, their lack of spiritual fervour, their worldly 
ambition, their misapprehension of the significance of cere- 



36 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

monies, their soulless teaching of divine things, all at times 
roused his resentment, and he hoped for improvement. But 
in the constitution of the great Roman hierarchy, under the 
sway of St. Peter's vicegerent, the Pope, he had unswerving 
faith. It never occurred to him to question the belief in the 
Pope. Against any encroachment on the Pope's authority 
every fibre of his mind and body was prepared to resist to 
the last. From first to last he exhausted the language of 
invective in denouncing the self-styled reformers of religion. 
The enlightened principles of reason and tolerance which 
he had illustrated with unmatchable point and vivacity in 
the Utopia were ignored, were buried. As soon as the papal 
claim to supremacy in matters of religion was disputed, every 
pretension of the papacy seemed to take, in More's mind, 
the character of an indisputable law of nature. To chal- 
lenge it was to sin against the light. No glimmer of justice 
nor of virtue could his vision discover in those who took an- 
other view. 

Meanwhile More was steadily building up a material for- 
tune and practical repute. His success as a diplomatist at 
Court Antwerp reinforced his reputation as a lawyer in 

office. London. He showed gifts of oratory which espe- 

cially gratified the public ear. The King's great minister, 
Wolsey, anxious to absorb talent which the public recognised, 
deemed it politic to offer him further public employment. 
Unexpected favour was shown him. His ability and reputa- 
tion led to his appointment to a prominent Court office, 
a Mastership of Requests, or Examiner of Petitions that were 
presented to the King on his progresses through the country. 
The duties required More to spend much time at Court, and 
he was thus brought suddenly and unexpectedly into relation 
with the greatest person in the State — with the King. 

According to Erasmus, More was ' dragged ' into the circle 



SIR THOMAS MORE 37 

of the Court. ' " Dragged " is the only word/ wrote his 
friend, ' for no one ever struggled harder to gain 

1.1. IS flt/Ll— 

admission there than More struggled to escape.' tudeto 

politics. 
Secular politics always seemed to More a puny 

business. He always held a modest view of his own ca- 
pacities, and despite his literary professions and the Utopia, 
he never entertained the notion that from the heights of 
even supreme office could a statesman serve his country 
to much purpose. By lineage he was closely connected with 
the people. No ties of kinship bound him to a privileged 
nobility. He instinctively cherished a limited measure of 
popular sympathy. He desired all classes of society to enjoy 
to full extent such welfare as was inherent in the estab- 
lished order of things. Above all, he was by temperament 
a conservative. He had little faith in the efficacy of new 
legislation to ameliorate social or political conditions. He 
had no belief in heroic or revolutionary statesmanship. At 
most the politician could prevent increase of evil. He could 
not appreciably enlarge the volume of the nation's virtue or 
prosperity. To other activities than those of statesmen, to 
religious and spiritual energy and endeavour, More alone 
looked in the work-a-day world for the salvation of man and 
society. ' It is not possible,' he wrote complacently, ' for 
all things to be well unless all men are good; which I think 
will not be yet these many years.' Study of precedents, 
experience, reliance on those religious principles which had 
hitherto enjoyed the undivided allegiance of his countrymen, 
these things alone gave promise of healthful conduct of the 
world's affairs. It was neither a fruitful nor a logical creed, 
when applied to politics, but it was one to which More, 
despite the professions of his imaginary spokesman in his 
great romance, clung throughout his political career with 
unrelaxing tenacity. 



38 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

The established principles of absolute monarchy More 
accepted intuitively. He respected the authority of the 

King with a whole heart. Henry viii.'s private 

His loyalty. ' . , 

character illustrated the inconsistency ot conduct 
which prevailed among the children of the Renaissance. 
He could be ' wise, amaz'd, temperate and furious, loyal 
and neutral in a moment.' But there was much in Henry 
viii.'s personality to confirm More's instinctive reverence for 
the head of the State. The King was well educated, and 
encouraged pursuit of the New Learning. If he had dis- 
appointed the hopes of those, who, at his succession, pro- 
phesied that his reign would inaugurate peace and good-will 
at home and among the nations, he was reckoned to have at 
heart, provided his autocratic pretensions went unquestioned, 
the welfare of his people. His geniality attracted all 
comers, and diverted condemnation of his sensuality and 
tyranny. For the main dogmas and ceremonial observances 
of the Church of his fathers he professed reverent loyalty. 
The King bade More, at the outset of his Court career, 
look first unto God, and after God unto the King. Such 
conventional counsel was in complete accord with More's 
working views of life. 

More's personal fascination at once put him on intimate 
terms with his sovereign. His witty conversation, his wide 
knowledge, delighted Henry, who treated his new counsellor 
with much familiarity, often summoning him to his private 
The King's room to talk of science or divinity, or inviting him 
favour. j. Q SU pp er w ith the King and Queen in order to 

enjoy his merry talk. At times Henry would go to More's 
own house and walk about the garden at Chelsea with him. 
But More did not exaggerate the significance of these atten- 
tions. He had no blind faith in the security of royal favour. 
Whatever his respect for the kingly office, he formed no 



SIR THOMAS MORE 39 

exaggerated estimate of the magnanimity of its holder. ' If 
my head should win him a castle in France,' More once re- 
marked to his son-in-law, ' it should not fail to go.' 



More's ascent of the steps of the official ladder was very 
rapid. He was knighted in the spring of 1521, and each of 
the ten years that followed saw some advance of Rap^ pre . 
dignity. From every direction came opportunities ferment - 
of preferment. The King manifested the continuance of his 
confidence by making him sub-Treasurer of the Household. 
To Cardinal Wolsey's influence he owed one session's ex- 
perience of the Speakership of the House of Commons. He 
was employed on many more diplomatic missions abroad, 
and in 1525 became chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. 

The smiles of fortune engendered no pride in More. The 
Cardinal expressed surprise that he did not press his advan- 
tage with greater energy or seek larger pecuniary lore's 
rewards for his service. Independence was of humillt y- 
greater value to him than wealth or titles, and he made the 
Cardinal often realise that he was a fearless if witty critic 
whom no bribe could convert into a tool. 

Had Wolsey foreseen events, he might have had good 
ground for fearing More's advancement. Wolsey suddenly 
forfeited the royal favour and was deprived of his high office 
of Lord Chancellor in the autumn of 1529. Six days later — 
on 25th October — greatly to More's surprise, the Morem de 
Kine invited him to fill the vacant place. The Lord 

& r Chancellor 

post of Lord Chancellor is the head of the legal 25th Oct. 
profession in England — the chief judge, the ad- 
viser of the King in all legal business, who is popularly 
called keeper of the King's conscience. More's appointment 
was an exceptional proceeding from every point of view. 



40 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

Lord Chancellors, though their business was with law, had 
of late invariably been dignitaries of the Church, who in the 
middle ages were the chief lawyers. Doubtless the King's 
motive in promoting to so high an office a man of compara- 
tively humble rank was in order to wield greater influence 
over the Chancellor, and to free himself of the bonds that 
had been forged for him by Wolsey, whose powerful in- 
dividuality and resolute ambition seems to find among modern 
statesmen the closest reflection in Prince Bismarck. 

More's father, Sir John More, was still judge when he 
first occupied the woolsack, and Sir John remained on the 

bench till his death a year later. Sir Thomas's 
More and 
his father affection for his father was deep and lasting, and 

during the first year of his Chancellorship, while 
he and his father were both judges at the same time, it was 
the Chancellor's daily practice to visit his father in the lower 
court in order to ask a blessing as he passed down West- 
minster Hall on the way to his superior court of Chancery. 
With like humility More bore himself to all on reaching 
the goal of a lawyer's mundane ambition. Nor did his dig- 
nities repress his mirthful geniality in intercourse either with 
equals or inferiors. 

The King had need of subservient instruments in his great 
offices of State. He was contemplating a great revolution 
The King m n ' s own n ^ e ano ^ m the ^ e °f the nation. He 
Reforma- ^ad determined to divorce his wife, Queen Cath- 
tlon - erine, and to marry another, Anne Boleyn. The 

purpose was not easy of fulfilment. The threatened Queen 
had champions at home and abroad, with whom conflict was 
perilous. Charles v., the Emperor of the Holy Roman Em- 
pire, Henry's most persistent rival in his efforts to dominate 
Europe, was his wife's nephew. Divorce was a weapon that 
could only be wielded by the Pope, and it was known that 



SIR THOMAS MORE 41 

the Pontiff was not inclined to forward Henry's wish. It 
was this intricate coil of circumstance which encumbered 
More's great elevation. The clouds deepened in the years 
that followed, and ultimately cast the shadow of tragedy 
over the tenor of More's life. 

XI 

Soon after More became Chancellor, the King lightly con- 
sulted him on the projected divorce. More frankly declared 
himself opposed to the King's design. Henry for f 

the time was complacent, and told his new Chan- view of 

the King's 

cellor he was free to hold his own opinion. The projected 

divorce 

King, however, never recognised any obstacle, 

however formidable it might prove, to the fulfilment of his 

will. No authority, not even that of the Pope, was powerful 

enough to deflect his settled purpose. To him the 

6 r r The King's 

conclusion was inevitable that if the Pope would supreme 

power, 
not go with him on an errand to which he was 

committed, he must go without the Pope. An upheaval of 

the ecclesiastical and political constitution of the State which 

should put heavy strain on the conscience of a large section 

of his people was a price that Henry was prepared to pay 

with equanimity for the acomplishment of his desires. The 

sanction of the papacy was to be abrogated in his dominions, 

if it failed to accommodate itself to the royal resolve. 

Apart from his obstinate faith in his own personal power, 

the King knew that he possessed in the sympathy which the 

Lutheran movement in Germany bred among a m 

J ° The growth 

small class of his subjects a powerful lever which of Protes- 
tantism. 
might easily be worked to bring about England's 

separation from Rome. Hitherto he had done what he could 

to discourage the spread of the Lutheran movement at home, 

and the mass of the people had proved loyal to the papacy. 



42 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

But controversy respecting the precise grounds of the Pope's 
claim in England to the supreme authority in matters of 
religion had already sown seeds of alienation between Eng- 
land and Rome; were those seeds fostered by royal influence, 
there would be placed in the royal hand a formidable weapon 
of offence. The cry of national independence always quick- 
ened the people's spirit, and it could readily be made 
the watchword of opposition to the papal pretensions. The 
King's position as champion of his people against foreign 
domination was difficult of assault. 

The constitution of the country was, too, easily adaptable 
to Henry's purposes. Parliament, which as yet knew little 

of its strength, was usually eager to give effect to 
ness of a popular King's wishes. His wishes were indeed 

hardly distinguishable from commands. As soon 
as the King's mind was made up, it was easy for him to 
secure parliamentary enactments which should disestablish 
the papacy in England and abolish its sovereignty. At a 
word from the King Parliament could be reckoned on to 
remove all the obstacles that papal obduracy put in the 
way of the legal accomplishment of his plan of divorce. 
Officers of State, and indeed the people at large, might dis- 
approve of such parliamentary action, but they could only 
stand aside or acquiesce. The King whose liking for More 
was not easily dispelled applied no compulsion to him either 
to accept his master's policy or to declare his convictions. 
He was at liberty, he was told, to stand aside. 

Neutrality for More on matters touching his innermost 
beliefs was out of the question. For him to remain in office 

when the Government was irretrievably committed 
More's con- 
scientious to heresy was to belie his conscience. To con- 
scruples. 

demn himself to silence in any relation of life 

was contrary to his nature. Tacitly to accept the revolution in 



SIR THOMAS MORE 43 

religion, which was henceforth to identify England with Pro- 
testantism, was in his eyes a breach of the laws of morality. 
As soon, therefore, as Parliament was invited to His res j„. 
set aside papal power in England, More retired ?i atl £? °\ 
from his high office. He had held the Chancellor- sack - 
ship, when he resigned it in the spring of 1532, for two and 
a half years. In spite of all his early hopes and ambitions, 
it was with a profound sense of relief that he brought his 
official career to an end. 

Loyalty to the King was still a cherished doctrine of 
More's practical philosophy, even when loyalty was avowedly 
in conflict with his principles. The inconsistent attitude of 
mind was unchangeable till death. To preserve his sense of 
loyalty from decay now required of him, he per- 

ceived, a serious effort. The proper course, to spiritual 

ambition, 
his mind, was to abstain henceforth from affairs 

of State, and to keep his mind fixed exclusively on spiritual 

matters. Pitfalls encircled him, but he was sanguine enough 

to believe that, despite all that had happened in the past or 

might happen in the future, he might as a private citizen 

reconcile his duty to his God with his duty to his King. 

To Erasmus he wrote on the day of his resignation. 

' That which I have from a child unto this day continually 

wished that being freed from the troublesome businesses 

of public affairs, I might live somewhile only to God and 

myself, I have now by the especial grace of Almighty God, 

and the favour of my most indulgent prince obtained.' He 

told his friend that he was sick at heart, and that his physical 

strength was failing. Apprehension of the trend of public 

affairs shook his nerve, but there was no infirmity in his 

convictions. 



44 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



XII 

The abandonment of his career meant for More a serious 

reduction of income, and entailed upon him the need of liv- 
ing with great simplicity. He adapted his house- 

More's 

impaired hold expenses to his diminished revenues with 

resources. 

alacrity, but showed the utmost consideration for 

all retainers whom he was compelled to dismiss. 1 He called 

all his children together and reminded them that he had 

mounted to the highest degree from the lowest, and that he 

had known all manner of fare from the scantiest to the most 

abundant, — the fare of a poor Oxford student, of a poor 

law student, of a junior barrister, and finally of a great 

officer of state. He hardly knew how far his resources would 

go; he would not at the outset adopt the lowest scale of 

living with which youthful experience had familiarised him; 

he would make trial of the fare to which his earnings as 

barrister had accustomed him; but he warned his hearers that, 

if his revenues proved insufficient to maintain that level of 

expenditure after a year's experiment, he should promptly 

descend in the scale, with risk of a further descent, should 

prudence require it. He jested over the necessity which he 

suffered of selling his plate; he cheerfully declared that a 

hundred pounds a year was adequate for any reasonable 

man's requirements. 

More's chief interests were for the time absorbed in the 

1 When dismissing the gentleman and yeomen of his household, he en- 
deavoured to find situations for them with bishops and noblemen. He 
seems to have presented his barge to his successor in the Chancellorship 
Sir Thomas Audley, with the request that the new Chancellor would retain 
in his service the eight bargemen who had served his predecessor. 



SIR THOMAS MORE 45 

erection of a tomb for himself in Chelsea Church. For 

the monument he prepared a long epitaph, in 

which he announced the fulfilment of his early Chelsea 

tomb, 
resolves to devote his last years to preparation 

for the life to come. 

From the worldly points of view — public or private — 
More's premature withdrawal from the office of Lord Chan- 
cellor was regrettable. The chief duty of a Lord 

. His work 

Chancellor is to act as a judge in equity, to dis- as Chan- 
cellor, 
pense justice in the loftiest and widest sense. 

For the performance of such a function More had first-rate 
capacity, and the wisdom of his judgments rendered his 
tenure of the Chancellorship memorable in the annals of 
English law. He worked with exceptional rapidity and, 
as long as he held office, freed the processes of law from their 
traditional imputation of tardiness. On one occasion he 
cleared off the business of his court before ten o'clock in 
the morning. A popular rhyme long ran to the effect: — 

'When More some time had Chancellor been 

No more suits did remain, 
The like will never more be seen 
Till More be there again.' 

We are told that ' The poorest suitor obtained ready access 
to him and speedy trial, while the richest offered presents in 
vain, and the claims of kindred found no favour.' More's 
son-in-law and biographer wrote ' That he would for no 
respect digress from justice well appeared by a plain ex- 
ample of his son-in-law Mr. Giles Heron. For when the 
son having a matter before his father-in-law in the Chancery, 
presuming too much of his father-in-law's favour would by 
him in no wise be persuaded to agree to any indifferent order, 
then made the Chancellor in conclusion a flat decree against 
his son-in-law.' 



46 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

More took the widest views of his duty, and ignored all 

restrictive formalities. It was not only in his court that 

he was prepared to dispense justice to the people whom 

he served. ' This Lord Chancellor/ wrote his son-in-law, 

' used commonly every afternoon to sit in his open 

His 

accessibility hall, to the intent, if any person had any suit 

unto him, they might the more boldly come to his 
presence, and there open complaints before him. His manner 
was also to read every bill or cause of action himself, ere he 
would award any subpoena, which bearing matter sufficient 
worthy a subpoena, would he set his hand unto, or else cancel 
it.' Constantly did he point out to his colleagues that equi- 
table considerations ought to qualify the rigour of the law. 

But high as was More's standard of conduct on the judi- 
cial bench, he did not escape censure. In the stirring con- 
troversy, to one side of which he was deeply com- 
Censure of 

his judicial mitted, every manner of calumnious suspicion was 
conduct. 

generated. Ihere were vague charges brought 

against him of taking bribes. But these hardly admit of 
examination. More serious were the persistent reports that 
he had used his judicial power in order to torture physically 
those who held religious opinions differing from his own. 
There seems little question that at times he endeavoured to 
repress the spread of what he regarded as heresy or irreligion 
by cruel punishment of offenders. But the evidence against 
him comes from opponents who were resolved to put the 
worst construction on all he did. His alleged acts of tyranny 
have been misrepresented. He had an old-fashioned belief 
on the value of corporal punishment. A boy in his service 
who talked lightly of sacred things to a fellow-servant was 
whipped by his orders. A madman who brawled in churches, 
was sentenced by him to be beaten. He honestly thought 
that in certain circumstances, physical torture and even burn- 



SIR THOMAS MORE 47 

ing at the stake was likely to extirpate heretical doctrine. 
The fervour of his religious faith inclined him to identify 
with crime obstinate defiance of the ancient dogmas. His 
native geniality was not proof against the consuming fire of 
his religious zeal. But the ultimate humaneness of his nature 
was not subdued to what it worked in. 



XIII 

In his retirement, More studied the writings of the Pro- 
testant controversialists, and sought to meet their arguments 
in a long series of tracts in which he expressed More 
himself with heat and vehemence. He abandoned theological 
the Latin language, in which he had penned his controvers y- 
great romance of Utopia, and wrote in English in order to 
gain the ear of a wider pubhc. 

The chief object of his denunciation was the Protestant 
translator of the Bible into English, and the foremost of the 
early champions of the English Reformation, The attack 
William Tyndale. In the opposite camp Tyndale onT y ndal e 
faced, with a resolution equal to More's, poverty, danger and 
death in the service of what he held to be divine truth. 
Already in the height of his prosperity had More opened 
fire on Tyndale; as early as 1529, the year of his accession 
to the Chancellorship, he had passionately defended the cause 
of Rome against the ' pestilent sect of Luther and Tyndale.' 
Before More's withdrawal from public life, Tyndale replied 
with much cogency and satiric bitterness, although he wrongly 
suspected More of having sold his pen to his royal employer. 
More, by his retirement from public life, effectively confuted 
such suspicion. When in his time of leisure he renewed the 
attack on the foe, he gave him no quarter. Tyndale's writ- 



48 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

ings were declared to be a ' very treasury and well- 
spring of wickedness.' The reformer and friends were of 
all ' heretics that ever sprang in Christ's church the very 
worst and the most beastly.' More did not object to trans- 
lations of the Bible into English, provided they were faith- 
ful renderings. But Tyndale's version of the New Testa- 
men had (he argued) altered ' matters of great weight,' and 
was only worthy of the fire. Erasmus wisely thought his 
friend would have been more prudent in leaving theology to 
the clergy. It was under stress of an irresistible impulse 
which reason could not moderate that More fanned with his 
pen the theological strife. 

More's time was fully occupied in his library and chapel, 
and he sought no recreation abroad. He studiously avoided 
More seeks the Court, where the predominance of the King's 
political" 3 new wif^ Anne Boleyn, intensified his misgivings 
affairs. Q f ^ e course f public affairs. But he was dis- 

creetly silent when friends invited his opinion on political 
topics. His mind, however, was always alert, and his rebel- 
lious instincts were not always under control. In spite of 
himself he was drawn from his retreat into the outer circle 
of the political whirlpool, and was soon engulfed beyond 
chance of deliverance. 

In 1533 England was distracted by a curious imposture. 
A young woman, Elizabeth Barton, who became known as 
the Holy Maid of Kent, was believed to be possessed of the 
gift of prophecy. She prophesied that the King had ruined 

his soul and would come to a speedy end for hav- 
More and 

the Maid ing divorced Queen Catherine. She was under 
of Kent. 

the influence of priests, who were resentful at 

the recent turn of affairs, and were sincerely moved by the 
unjust fate that the divorced Queen Catherine had suffered. 
The girl's priestly abettors insisted that she was divinely 



SIR THOMAS MORE 49 

inspired, and information of her sayings was forwarded to 
More. He showed interest in her revelations, and did not 
at the outset reject the possibility that they were the out- 
come of divine inspiration. He visited her when she was 
staying with the monks of the Charterhouse at Sion House, 
London. He talked with her, and was impressed by her 
spiritual fervour, but he was prudent in the counsel that he 
offered her. He advised her to devote herself to pious 
exercises, and not to meddle with political themes. He com- 
mitted himself to little in his interview with her. It was, 
however, perilous to come into close quarters with her at 
all. The nation was greatly roused by her utterances, which 
were fully reported and circulated by her priestly friends. 
The new Protestant Minister of the King, Cromwell, deemed 
it needful to take legal proceedings against her and her 
allies. She and the priests were arrested. By way of de- 
fence they asserted that More, the late Lord Chancellor, was 
one of the Holy Maid's disciples. 

The Minister, Cromwell, sent to More for an explanation; 
More repeated what he knew of the woman, and Cromwell 
treated his relations with her as innocent. More Cromwell 
soon learned the dishonest tricks by which the explana- 
Maid of Kent's influence had been spread by the tlODS - 
priests, and he at once admitted that he had been the victim 
of a foolish imposture. But at the trial of the Holy Maid of 
Kent proofs were adduced of the reverence in which More's 
views were held by disaffected Catholics. The King's sus- 
picions were aroused. He dreaded More's influence, and, in 
defiance of his personal feeling for him, could not bring him- 
self to neglect the opportunity of checking his credit which 
the proceedings against the Holy Maid seemed to offer. 

More was charged with conniving at treason through his 

D 



50 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

intercourse with the Holy Maid. Summoned before a Com- 
mittee of the Privy Council, he was asked an 
The threat J 

ofprosecu- irrelevant question which was embarrassing. It 

had no concern with the charges of treason brought 
against him, yet it went to the root of the situation. Had 
he declined to acknowledge the wisdom and necessity of the 
King's abjuration of the Pope's authority in England? More 
quietly replied that he wished to do everything that was 
acceptable to the King; he had explained his views freely 
to him, and he knew not that he had incurred the royal dis- 
pleasure. There the matter was for the moment suffered to 
rest. But very ominous looked the future. The charge of 
treason was not pressed further. Its punishment might have 
been death; it would certainly have been fine and imprison- 
ment. For the time More was safe. The warning was, 
however, unmistakable. More's eyes were opened to the 
peril which menaced him. His friend the Duke of Nor- 
folk reminded him that the anger of a King means 
More con- 
scious of death. More received the remark with equa- 
his danger. .. <ti h -r -i «, > 1 

nimity. Is that all, my Lord? he answered, 

' then, in good faith, between your Grace and me is but 
this, that I shall die to-day, and you to-morrow.' 



XIV 

Rulers in those days believed that coercion gave ultimate 
security to uniformity of opinion. Henry was not willing to 
The tolerate dissent from his policy, though he bore 

o^Anne More no ill-will. On his own terms the King was 

Boleyn. always ready to welcome his ex-Chancellor's re- 

turn to the royal camp, but he felt embarrassment, which was 



SIR THOMAS MORE 51 

easily convertible into resentment, at More's remaining in 

permanence outside. Having now divorced Queen Catherine, 

and married Queen Anne, Henry had caused a bill to be 

passed through Parliament vesting the succession to the 

Crown in Anne's children, and imposing as a test of loyalty 

an oath on all Englishmen, by which they undertook to be 

faithful subjects of the issue of the new Queen. 

Commissioners were nominated to administer this oath, and 

they interpreted their duties liberally. They added to it 

words by which the oath-taker abjured any foreign 

J J J B The oath 

potentate, i.e. the Pope. More was summoned be- abjuring 
pi /-, . . iiii the Pope, 

lore the new Commissioners, at whose head stood 

Cromwell the Minister, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
Cranmer. After hearing Mass, and taking the Holy Com- 
munion, he presented himself to the Archbishop and his 
fellow Commissioners at the Archbishop's Palace of Lam- 
beth. The ex-Chancellor was requested to subscribe to the 
new oath in its extended form. The demand roused his 
spirit; he was in no temper to sacrifice his principles. He 
declared himself ready to take the oath of fidelity to the 
Queen's children, but he declined to go further. He was 
bidden take an oath that impugned the Pope's authority. 
He refused peremptorily. He was told that he was setting 
up his private judgment against the nation's wisdom as 
expressed in Parliament. More replied that the council of 
the realm was setting itself against the general council of 
Christendom. The Commissioners were uncertain what step 
to take next. They ordered More for the present into the 
custody of one of themselves, the Abbot of West- M , 
minster Abbey. The Archbishop was inclined to detention. 
a compromise. What harm would come of permitting 
More to take the oath with the reservations which he had 
claimed? The King was consulted; he also expressed doubt 



52 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

as to the fit course to pursue. The new Queen, Anne Boleyn, 
had, however, made up her mind that More was a danger- 
ous enemy. At her instance the King and his Minister de- 
clared that no exception could be made in favour of More. 
By their order he was committed to the Tower of London 
as a traitor, and there he remained a prisoner until his 
death, some fifteen months later. An old friend, John Fisher, 
Bishop of Rochester, had of late gone through the same 
experience as More, and he was already in the Tower to 
welcome the arrival of his companion in the faith. 

Lawyers generally doubted whether the oath of fidelity to 
the new Queen's issue, as defined in the Act of Parliament, 

included any repudiation of the Pope; and Parlia- 
Theoathof J f r 

the Act of ment was invited to solve this doubt by passing a 
Succession. 

resolution stating that the double-barrelled oath, 

as it had been administered to More and Fisher, was the 
very oath intended by the Act of Succession. More's position 
was thereby rendered most critical. There was no longer 
any doubt that he was putting himself in opposition to the 
law of the land. Legal definition was given to his offence. 
A bill of indictment was drawn against him; it declared him 
to be a sower of sedition, and guilty of ingratitude to his 
royal benefactor. 

Adversity as it deepened had no terrors for More. His 
passage from palace to prison did not disturb his equanimity. 
He had already written in verse of the vicissitudes of for- 
More's tune. He had represented the scornful goddess 

resignation. ag distributing among men ' brittle gifts,' bestow- 
ing them only to amuse herself by suddenly plucking them 
away — 

'This is her sport, thus proveth she her might; 
Great boast she mak'th if one be by her power 
Wealthy and wretched both within an hour. 



SIR THOMAS MORE 53 

Wherefore if thou in surety lust to stand, 
Take poverty's part and let proud fortune go, 
Receive nothing that cometh from her hand. 
Love manner and virtue; they be only tho, 
Which double Fortune may not take thee fro': 
Then may'st thou boldly defy her turning chance, 
She can thee neither hinder nor advance.' 

There was no affectation in the lines. More wrote from his 
heart. It was with a smile on his lips that he returned 
Fortune's ugliest scowl. 



XV 

In the Tower More's gaolers treated him with kindness. 
His health was bad, but his spirits were untamable, and 
when his friends and his wife and children visited i n the 
him in his cell his gaiety proved infectious. In Tower - 
the first days of his imprisonment he wrote many letters, 
punctually performed his religious duties, and penned re- 
ligious tracts. There was no hope of his giving way. His 
wife urged him to yield his scruples, ask pardon of the 
King, and gain his freedom. He replied that prison was 
as near Heaven as his own house, and he had no inten- 
tion of quitting his cell. His children petitioned the King 
for pardon on the ground of his ill-health and their poverty, 
and they re-asserted that his offence was not of malice or 
obstinacy, but of such a long-continued and deep-rooted 
scruple as passeth his power to avoid and put away. His 
relatives were forced to submit to painful indignities. They 
had to pay for his board and lodging, and their resources 
were small. More's wife sold her clothes in order to pay 
the prison fees. 

Henry, under the new Queen's influence, was now at length 



54 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

incensed against More. The likelihood of his mercy was 

small. Parliament was entirely under his sway. 
The King J J 

and the In the late autumn of 153-1 yet a new Act was 

supremacy _ 

of the passed to complete the separation of England 

from Rome. There was conferred on the King 
the title of Supreme Head of the Church in place of 
the Pope, and that title, very slightly modified, all Henry 
vm. 's successors have borne. The new Act made it high 
treason maliciously to deny any of the royal titles. Next 
spring Minister Cromwell went to the Tower and asked More 
his opinion of this new statute; was it in his view lawful or 
no? More sought refuge in the declaration that he was a 
faithful subject of the King. He declined further answer. 
Similiar scenes passed in the months that followed. But 
More was warned that the King would compel a precise 
answer. 

More's fellow-prisoner Fisher was subjected to the like 
trials, and they compared their experiences in correspondence 
Hiscorres- with each other. More also wrote in terms of 
pondence. pathetic affection to his favourite daughter, Mar- 
garet Roper, and described the recent discussions in his cell. 
He received replies. In the result his correspondence was 
declared to constitute a new offence; it amounted to con- 
spiracy. The prisoner was unmoved by the baseless in- 
sinuation. His treatment became more rigorous. Deprived 
of writing materials and books, he could only write to his 
wife, daughter or friends on scraps of paper with pieces 
of coal. 

More cheerfully abandoned hope of freedom. He caused 
the shutters of the cell to be closed, and spent his time in con- 
templation in the dark. His end was, indeed, near. 
His trial. »■ i i 1 -ii i /» i i_ 

Death had been made the penalty for those who 

refused to accept the King's supremacy. On the 25th June 



SIR THOMAS MORE 55 

1535, Fisher suffered for his refusal on the scaffold. On 
the 1st July 1535, More was brought to Westminster Hall 
to stand his trial for having infringed the Act of Supremacy, 
disobedience to which was now high treason. The Crown 
relied on his answer to his examiners in the prison, and on 
his correspondence with Fisher. He was ill in health, and 
was allowed to sit. He denied the truth of most of the 
evidence. He had not advised his friend Fisher to dis- 
obey the new Act; he had not described that new Act as a 
two-edged sword, approval of which ruined the soul, while 
disapproval of it ruined the body. The outcome was not 
in doubt. A verdict of guilty was returned, and More, the 
faithful son of the old Church and the disciple of the new 
culture, was sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn. As he 
left the Court he remarked that no temporal lord could law- 
fully be head of the Church; that he had studied the history 
of the papacy, and was convinced that it was based on Divine 
authority. 

With calm and unruffled temper, More faced the end. As 
he re-entered the Tower he met his favourite daughter who 

asked his blessing. The touching episode is thus 

& 6 r t The fare- 

narrated by William Roper, husband of More's well to his 

daughter. 

eldest daughter, who wrote the earliest biography 
of More : — ' When Sir Thomas More came from Westminster 
to the Tower-Ward again, his daughter, my wife, desirous 
to see her father, whom she thought she should never see in 
this world after, and alsoe to have his final blessing, gave 
attendance about the Tower wharf where she knew he should 
pass before he could enter into the Tower. There tarrying 
his comming, as soon as she saw him, after his blessing upon 
her knees reverentlie received, she hasting towards him, with- 
out consideracion or care of her selfe, pressing in amongst 
the midst of the throng and company of the guard, that with 



56 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

halberds and bills went round about him, hastily ran to him, 
and there openly in sight of them embraced him and took 
him about the neck and kissed him. Who well liking her 
most natural and dear daughterly affecion towards him gave 
her his fatherly blessing and many godly words of comfort 
besides. From whom after she was departed, she was not 
satisfied with the former sight of him, and like one that 
had forgotten herself being all ravished with the entire love 
of her father, having respect neither to herself nor to the 
press of the people and multitude that were there about him, 
suddenly turned back again, ran to him as before, took him 
about the neck and divers times kissed him lovingly, and at 
last with a full and heavy heart was fain to depart from 
him: the beholding whereof was to many that were present 
so lamentable that it made them for very sorrow thereof to 
weep and mourn.' 



XVI 

The King commuted the sentence of hanging to that of 
beheading, a favour which More grimly expressed the hope 
lore's that his friends might be spared the need of ask- 

execution. j n g Early on the morning of the 6th July he 
was carried from the Tower to Tower Hill for execution. 
His composure knew no diminution. ' I pray thee, see me 
safely up,' he said to the officer who led him from the Tower, 
up the steps of the frail scaffold, ' as for my coming down, 
I can shift for myself.' He encouraged the headsman to do 
his duty fearlessly: ' Pluck up thy spirits, man; be not 
afraid to do thine office; my neck is very short.' He seemed 
to speak in jest as he moved his beard from the block, with 
the remark that it had never committed treason. Then with 



SIR THOMAS MORE 57 

the calmness of one who was rid of every care he told 

the bystanders that he died in and for the faith of the 

Catholic Church, and prayed God to send the King good 

counsel. 

His body was buried in the Tower of London. The tomb 

that he had erected at Chelsea never held his remains. His 

head was placed, according to the barbarous cus- 

r * ° Preserva- 

tom of that day, on a pole on London Bridge, but tionofhis 

head by 
his favourite daughter, Margaret Roper, privately Margaret 

• Roper, 

purchased it a month later, and preserved it in 

spices till her death, nine years afterwards. Tennyson 

commemorated her devotion in his great poem ' Dream of 

Fair Women,' where he describes her as the woman who 

clasped in her last trance of death her murdered father's 

head. 

'Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark 

Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last trance 
Her murdered father's head.' 

The head is said to have long belonged to her descendants, 
and to have been finally placed in the vault belonging to her 
husband's family in a church at Canterbury. 

More's piteous fate startled the world. His meekness at 
the end, the dignified office which he once enjoyed, the fine 
temper of his intellect, his domestic virtues seemed to plead 
like angels trumpet-tongued against the deep damnation of 
his taking off. To onlookers it appeared as if virtue and 
wisdom in a champion of orthodoxy had whetted the fury of 
a schismatic tyrant. To the principle and sentiment of the 
Catholic peoples a desperate challenge had been offered. 
' The horrid deed was blown in every eye, and tears drowned 
the wind ' of every country of Western Europe. Catholics 
in Europe freely threatened the King (Henry vm.) with 



58 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

reprisals. The Emperor, Charles v., declared he would 

rp, rather have lost his best city than such a counsel- 

1 he recep- J 

tion abroad \ OTm The Pope prepared a bull and interdict of 

of news of * * * 

his death. deposition which was designed to cut King Henry 

off from the body of Christ, to empower his subjects to expel 
him from the throne and to cast his soul in death into hell 
for ever. English ambassadors abroad were instructed, with- 
out much effect, to explain that More had suffered justly 
the penalty of the law, and that the legal procedure had been 
perfectly regular. In all countries poets likened him to the 
greatest heroes of antiquity, to Socrates, Seneca, Aristides and 
Cato. Few questioned the declaration of his friends that 
angels had carried his soul into everlasting glory, where an 
imperishable crown of martyrdom adorned his brow. 



XVII 

More's devotion to principle, his religious fervour, his 
invincible courage, are his most obvious personal character- 
More'a istics, but with them were combined a series of 

character. qualities which are rarely to be met with in the 
martyrs of religion. There was no gloom in his sunny na- 
ture. He was a wit, a wag, delighting in amusing repartee, 
and seeking to engage men in all walks of life in cheery 
talk. It was complained of him that he hardly ever opened 
his mouth except to make a joke, and his jests on the scaf- 
fold were held by many contemporary critics to be idle im- 
His mode pertinences. Yet his mode of life could stand 
the severest tests ; he lived with great simplicity, 
drinking little wine, avoiding expensive food, and dressing 
carelessly. He hated luxury or any sort of ostentation in 
his home life. At Chelsea he lived in patriarchal fashion, 



SIR THOMAS MORE 59 

with his children and their husbands or wives and his grand- 
children about him. He rarely missed attendance at the 
Chelsea Parish Church, and would often sing in the choir, 
wearing a surplice. He encouraged all his household to 
study and read, and to practise liberal arts. He was fond of 
animals, even foxes, weasels, and monkeys. He was a charm- 
ing host to congenial friends, though he disliked games of 
chance, and eschewed dice or cards. 

At the same time More never ceased to prove himself a 
child of the Renaissance. All forms of Art strongly appealed 
to him. He liked collecting curious furniture and His love 
plate. ' His house,' wrote Erasmus, ' is a maga- oi 
zine of curiosities, which he rejoices in showing.' He de- 
lighted in music, and persuaded his uncultivated wife to 
learn the flute and other instruments with him. Of painting 
he was an expert critic. The great German artist, Holbein, 
was his intimate friend, and, often staying with him at 
Chelsea, acknowledged More's hospitality by painting por- 
traits of him and his family. 

As a writer, More's fame mainly depended on his political 
romance of Utopia, which was penned in finished Latin. His 
Latin style, both in prose and verse, is of rare His Latin 
lucidity, and entitles him to a foremost place wntin e- 
among English contributors to the Latin literature of the 
Renaissance. His Utopia is an admirable specimen of fluent 
and harmonious Latin prose. With the popular English 
translation of his romance, which was first published sixteen 
years after his death, he had no concern. Much H j g English 
English verse as well as much Latin verse came P oetl- y- 
from More's active pen. Critics have usually ignored or 
scorned his English poetry. Its theme is mainly the fickleness 
of fortune and the voracity of time. But freshness and sin- 
cerity characterise his treatment of these well-worn topics, 



60 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

and, though the rhythm is often harsh, and the modern reader 
may be repelled by archaic vocabulary and constructions, 
H' E lish More at times achieves metrical effects which 
prose. adumbrate the art of Edmund Spenser. Of Eng- 

lish prose More made abundant use in treating both secular 
and religious themes. There is doubt as to his responsibility 
History of ^ or * ne ' History of Richard in./ which ordina- 
Richardm. r j]y fig Ures among his English prose writings. 
Archbishop Morton has been credited, on grounds that merit 
attention, with the main responsibility for its composition. 
It is an admirable example of Tudor prose, clear and simple, 

free from pedantry and singularly modern in 
Pico's Life. 

construction. Similar characteristics are only a 

little less conspicuous in More's authentic biography of Pico, 

the Italian humanist, who, like More himself, yielded to 

theology abilities that were better adapted to win renown 

in the pursuit of profane literature. 

It is, however, by the voluminous polemical tracts and 

devotional treatises of his closing career that More's English 

prose must be finally judged. In controversy 

versial More wrote with a rapidity and fluency which put 

theology. 

dignity out of the question. Very often the tone 

is too spasmodic and inter jectional to give his work genuine 

literary value. In the heat of passion he sinks to scurrility 

which admits of no literary form. But it is only episodically 

that his anger gets the better of his literary temper. His 

native humour was never long repressible, and some homely 

anecdote or proverbial jest usually rushed into his mind to 

stem the furious torrents of his abuse. When the gust of 

his anger passed, he said what he meant with the simple 

directness that comes of conviction, unconstrained by fear. 

Vigour and freedom are thus the main characteristics of his 

controversial English prose. 



SIR THOMAS MORE 61 

There is smaller trace of individual style in his books of 
religious exhortation and devotion, but their pious placidity 
does not exclude bursts both of eloquence and of anecdotal re- 
miniscence which prove his wealth of literary energy and 
of humoursome originality. To one virtue as a 
writer he can make no claim: pointed brevity in devotional 

trcjitisGS 

English was out of his range. In Latin he could 

achieve epigrams, but all his English works in prose are of 

massive dimensions, and untamable volubility. 

For two centuries after his death More was regarded by 
Catholic Europe as the chief glory of English literature. In 
the seventeenth century the Latin countries deemed More's 
Shakespeare and Bacon his inferiors. It was his ^pute^ 
Latin writing that was mainly known abroad. But abroad - 
even in regard to that branch of his literary endeavours, time 
has long since largely dissipated his early fame. In the 
lasting literature of the world, More is only remembered 
as the author of the Utopia, wherein he lives for all time, not 
so much as a man of letters, but in that imaginative role, 
which contrasts so vividly with other parts in his repertory, 
of social reformer and advocate of reason. In English lit- 
erary history his voluminous work in English prose deserves 
grateful, if smaller, remembrance. Despite the many crudi- 
ties of his utterance, he first indicated that native English 
prose might serve the purpose of great literature as effect- 
ively as Latin prose, which had hitherto held the field among 
all men of cultivated intelligence. There is an added paradox 
in the revelation that one who was the apostle in England at 
once of the cosmopolitan culture of the classical Renaissance 
and of the mediaeval dogmatism of the Roman Catholic 
Church should also be a strenuous champion of the literary 
usage of his vernacular tongue. But paradox streaks all 
facets of More's career. 



62 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

Few careers are more memorable for their pathos than 
More's. Fewer still are more paradoxical. In that regard 

he was a true child of an era of ferment and un- 
The para- 
doxes of disciplined enthusiasm, which checked orderliness 
his career. . , 

of conduct or aspiration. Sir 1 nomas Mores 

variety of aim, of ambition, has indeed few parallels even 
in the epoch of the Renaissance. Looking at him from one 
side we detect only a religious enthusiast, cheerfully sacrific- 
ing his life for his convictions — a man whose religious creed, 
in defence of which he faced death, abounded in what seems, 
in the dry light of reason, to be superstition. Yet surveying 
More from another side we find ourselves in the presence 
of one endowed with the finest enlightenment of the Renais- 
sance, a man whose outlook on life was in advance of his 
generation; possessed too of such quickness of wit, such 
imaginative activity, such sureness of intellectual insight, that 
he could lay bare with pen all the defects, all the abuses, 
which worn-out conventions and lifeless traditions had im- 
posed on the free and beneficent development of human 
endeavour and human society. That the man, who, by an 
airy effort of the imagination, devised the new and revolu- 
tionary ideal of Utopia, should end his days on the scaffold as 
a martyr to ancient beliefs which shackled man's intellect and 
denied freedom to man's thought is one of history's per- 
plexing ironies. Sir Thomas More's career propounds a 
riddle which it is easier to enunciate than to solve. 



Ill 

SIR THILIP SIDNEY 

'A combination and a form indeed, 
Where every god did seem to set his seal, 
To give the world assurance of a man.' 

Shakespeare, Hamlet, in. iv. 55-57. 

[Bibliography. — The earliest attempt at a biography of Sir 
Philip Sidney was made by his intimate friend, Fulke Greville, 
Lord Brooke, in the Life of the Renowned Sir Philip Sidney, 
which was first published in 1652. It is a rambling character 
sketch, intermingled with much irrelevant discussion of Eng- 
lish foreign policy. The fullest modern biography is by Mr. H. 
R. Fox-Bourne which was first published in 1862, and after- 
wards revised for re-issue in the ' Heroes of the Nations ' series, 
1891. Sidney's Arcadia, together with his chief literary works, 
appeared in 1598, and the volume was many times reprinted 
down to 1721. An abridgment of the Arcadia, edited by 
J. Hain Friswell, appeared in 1867. An attractive reprint of 
Sidney's Astrophel and Stella was edited by Mr. A. W. Pollard 
in 1888, and that collection of poems is included in Elizabethan 
Sonnets (1904), edited by the present writer in Messrs. Con- 
stable's ' English Garner.' The Apologie for Poetrie has been 
well edited by Prof. Albert S. Cook, of Yale (1901, Boston, 
U.S.A.).] 



The course of Sir Philip Sidney's life greatly differed from 
that of More's. Sidney held by patrimony a place in the 
social hierarchy which was outside More's experi- sjd ney > g 
ence. A grandson of a Duke, a nephew of Earls, hl g hbirtn - 
he belonged by birth to the English aristocracy, to the gov- 
erning classes of England. To some measure of distinction 
he was born. The professions of arms, of diplomacy, of 
politics, opened to him automatically without his personal 
effort. The circumstance of his lineage moulded the form 
and pressure of his career. 

63 



64 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

From other springs flowed his innermost ambitions. The 
spirit of the Renaissance imbued his intellectual being more 
Intellectual consistently than it imbued More's. The natural 
ambitions. affinities of Sidney's mind were from first to last 
with great literature and art, not with the turmoil of war, or 
politics, or creeds. The Muse of poetry who scorns the 
hollow pomp of rank laid chief claim to his allegiance. 
But he was a curious and persistent inquirer into many 
fashions of beauty besides the poetic. One part of his en- 
ergies was devoted to a prose romance, which he designed on 
a great scale; another part to prose criticism of a reasoned 
enlightenment that was unprecedented in England. To all 
manifestations of the new spirit of the age he was sensitive. 
But there were contrary influences, bred of his inherited 
environment, there were feudal and mediaeval traditions, 
which disputed the sway over him of the new forces of 
culture. The development of his poetic and literary en- 
dowments was checked by rival political and military pre- 
occupations. Even if death had spared him until his 
faculties were fully ripened, he seemed destined to distribute 
his activities over too wide a field for any of them to bear 
the richest fruit. He ranks with the heroes who have 
promised more than they have performed, with the pathetic 
sharers ' of unfulfilled renown.' 



Nineteen years after More's tragic death, and ten years 
before the birth of Shakespeare, Sir Philip Sidney came into 
The central the world. His short life of thirty-two years 
theRenais- covers the central period in the history of the Eng- 
sance. lish. Renaissance, which reached its first triumph 

in More's Utopia and its final glory in Shakespearean drama. 
Sidney died while Shakespeare was yet unknown to fame, 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 65 

when the dramatist's fortunes were in the balance, before his 
literary work was begun. 

Interests with which literature had little in common dis- 
tracted the mental energies of the nation between the dates 
of More's execution and of Sidney's birth. The National 
religious reformation had been carried to a con- s n e " 
elusion by coercive enactments, which outraged the con- 
sciences of too many subjects of the King to give immediate 
assurance of finality. The strong-willed monarch, Henry 
viii., had died, amid signs that justified doubt of the per- 
manence of the country's new religious polity. Disease soon 
laid its hands on the feeble constitution of the boy, who, 
succeeding to Henry's throne as Edward vi., upheld there 
with youthful eagerness and extravagance the cause of the 
Reformation. Factions of ambitious noblemen robbed the 
Court of respect, and jeopardised the Government's power. 
The air rang with confused threats of rebellion. The suc- 
cession to the throne was disputed on the boy-king's 
premature death. It was no time for the peaceful worship 
of the Muses. Political and religious strife oppressed the 
England of Sir Philip Sidney's infancy, and the circum- 
stances of his birth set him in the forefront of the struggle. 

Sidney was a native of Kent, born at Penshurst, in an old 
mansion of great beauty and historic interest which, dating 
from the fifteenth century, still stands. His Sidney's 
father, Sir Henry Sidney, was a politician who ir " 
who had long been busily engaged in politics, mainly in the 
ungrateful task of governing Ireland. His mother was a 
daughter of the ambitious nobleman, the Duke of Northum- 
berland, who endeavoured to place his daughter-in-law (of 
a nobler family than his own), Lady Jane Grey, upon the 
throne of England after the death of the boy-king Edward vi. 
The plot failed and Henry vin.'s eldest daughter, Mary, 

E 



66 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

who shared More's enthusiasm for the papacy and his horror 
of Protestantism, became Queen in accordance with law. The 
failure of the Duke's ambitious schemes led to his death on 
the scaffold. Queen Mary's accession preceded Sidney's 
birth by a few months, and the tragedy of his grandfather's 
execution darkened his entry into life. 

The two critical events — the failure of the Duke of North- 
umberland's scheme of usurpation, and Queen Mary's revival 
■rj. of a Catholic sovereignty — were vividly recalled at 

baptism. Philip's baptism. His godmother was his grand- 
mother, the widowed Duchess of Northumberland. His god- 
father was the new Catholic Queen's lately married husband, 
Philip of Spain, the sour fanatic, who shortly afterwards 
became King Philip n. It was an inauspicious conjunction 
of sponsors. Both were identified with doomed forces of 
reaction. The ancient regime of Spain, which King Philip 
represented, was already on its downward grade. The 
widowed Duchess was the survivor of a lawless and selfish 
political faction, which had defied political justice and the 
general welfare. Shadows fell across the child's baptismal 
font. A cloud of melancholy burdened the minds of those 
who tended him in infancy, and his childish thoughts soon 
took a serious hue. 

But before his childhood ended the gloom that hung about 

his country and his family's prospects was lightened. The 

superstitious Queen Mary, having restored to her 

Queen 

Elizabeth's country its old religion, died prematurely, and her 

jiccession 

work was quickly undone by her sister and suc- 
cessor, Queen Elizabeth. Fortune at length smiled again 
on the English throne, and the new sovereign won by her 
resolute temper, her self-possession and her patriotism, her 
people's regard and love. Slowly but surely the paths of 
peace were secured. The spirit of the nation was relieved 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 67 

of the griefs of religious and civil conflict. The Muses 
flourished in England as never before. 

On Sidney's domestic circle, too, a new era of hope dawned. 
His mother's brother, the ill-fated Duke of Northumberland's 
younger son, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Sidney's 
became Queen Elizabeth's favoured courtier, and, E^r^of & 
by a strange turn of fortune's wheel, wielded, Leicester - 
despite his father's disgrace and death, immense political 
influence. Throughout Sidney's adult life his uncle, Leices- 
ter, who, although unprincipled and self-indulgent, had 
affection for his kindred, was the most powerful figure in 
English public life. Such advantages as come of a near 
kinsman's great place in the political world lay at Sidney's 
disposal in boyhood and early manhood. 



The boy was at first brought up at Penshurst, but was 
soon taken further west, to Ludlow Castle. At the time 
his father, in the interval of two terms of gov- AtShrews- 
ernment in Ireland, was President of the princi- bury SCQ ° o1 - 
pality of Wales, which was then separately governed by a 
high officer of state. Ludlow Castle, then a noble palace, 
now a magnificent ruin, was his official residence. Owing to 
his father's residence in the western side of England, the 
boy Philip was sent to school at Shrewsbury, which was just 
coming into fame as a leading public school. 

On the same day there entered Shrewsbury school another 
boy of good family, who also attained great reputation in 
literature and politics, Fulke Greville, afterwards jr u uxe 
Lord Brooke. Greville was a poet at heart, al- Greville - 
though involved and mystical in utterance. He was Sidney's 
lifelong friend, and subsequently his biographer. Greville 



68 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

died forty-two years after his friend, but the memory of 
their association sank so deep in his mind and heart that, 
despite all the other honours which he won in mature life, 
he had it inscribed on his tomb that he was ' Friend to Sir 
Philip Sidney.' 

Sidney was a serious and thoughtful boy. Of his youth 
his companion, Greville, wrote : — ' I will report no other 
wonder than this, that, though I lived with him 
serious and knew him from a child, yet I never knew 

him other than a man, with such staidness of 
mind, lovely and familiar gravity, as carried grace and 
reverence above greater years; his talk ever of knowledge, 
and his very play tending to enrich his mind, so that even 
his teachers found something in him to observe and learn 
above that which they had usually read or taught. Which 
eminence by nature and industry made his worthy father 
style Sir Philip in my hearing, though I unseen, lumen 
families suae (light of his household).' Gravity of demeanour 
characterised Sidney at all periods of his life., 

From childhood Sidney was a lover of learning. At eleven 

years old he could write letters in French and Latin; and 

his father gave him while a lad advice on the 
At Oxford. B „ 

moral conduct of life which seemed to fit one of 

far maturer years. The precocious spirit of the Renaissance 
made men of boys, and youths went to the University in the 
sixteenth century at a far earlier age than now. At four- 
teen Philip left Shrewsbury school for the University of 
Oxford — for the great foundation of Christ Church, to 
which at an earlier epoch More had wended his way. At 
Oxford Sidney eagerly absorbed much classical learning, 
and gathered many new friends. His tutor was fascinated 
by his studious ardour, and he, too, like Sidney's friend 
Greville, left directions for the fact that Sidney had been 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 69 

his pupil to be recorded on his tombstone. As at school 
so at college Greville was Sidney's most constant companion. 
The Protestant faith, which Queen Elizabeth had re- 
established, was now the dominant religion, and Sidney, at 
school and college, warmly embraced the doctrines of the 
Reformation. But religious observances which dated from 
the older papal regime were still in vogue in England, and 
from one of them Philip as an undergraduate sought relief. 
His health was delicate. His influential uncle, the Earl of 
Leicester, was well alive to his promise, and he obtained a 
licence of the Archbishop of Canterbury for the boy to 
eat flesh in Lent, ' because he was subject to sickness.' 

The circumstance that Sidney was the Earl of Leicester's 
nephew placed many other special privileges within his reach. 

It opened to him the road to the Court, and gained 

Lord 
for him personal introduction to the great states- Burghley's 
. favour. 

men of the time. Queen Elizabeth s astute Lord 
Treasurer and Prime Minister, Sir William Cecil, afterwards 
Lord Burghley, came through Leicester to know of Sidney 
in his youth, and while at Oxford Philip spent a vacation 
with the statesman's family, who then lived near London, at 
Hampton Court. The experienced minister — like all who 
met Philip — acknowledged infinite attraction in the youth. 
' I do love him,' he said, ' as he were my own,' and he was 
moved by parental sentiment to suggest means whereby the 
lad might become ' his own.' He proposed to Philip's father, 
after the manner of parents of that time, a marriage between 
his elder daughter and the boy. Marriages in the higher 
ranks of society were in those days rarely arranged by the 
persons chiefly concerned. Parents acted as principals 
throughout the negotiations. Fathers and mothers were al- 
ways anxious to marry off daughters as soon as they left 
the nursery. Sons might wait a little longer. The girl in 



70 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

the present case was only thirteen. Philip was two years 
older. Money was the pivot on which such matrimonial com- 
pacts turned. But Sir Henry Sidney could not afford to 
make much pecuniary provision for his son. The Earl of 
Leicester did what he could to forward the auspicious project. 
He undertook to provide his nephew, Philip, with an income 
of near £300 a year on the day of his marriage with the 
Prime Minister's daughter, and promised something like 
three times that amount at a subsequent period. The dis- 
cussion went far between the parents, but the scheme was 
ultimately wrecked on pecuniary rocks. The girl's father 
wavered, and, on further consideration, thought it well to 
seek a suitor who was richer in his own right. Sidney 
was rejected. The young lady married a wealthier young 
nobleman, the Earl of Oxford, between whom and Sidney 
no love was lost thenceforth. The Earl of Oxford was a 
poet and a lover of poetry, but the new culture left no 
impress on his manners. Boorish and sullen tempered, Lord 
Burghley's new son-in-law assimilated the crude vices of 
the Renaissance. His nature rejected its urbanities. 

Epidemic disease, in days when cleanliness was reckoned 
a supererogatory virtue, devastated at frequent intervals Eng- 
The plague hand and Europe. An outbreak of the plague at 
at Oxford. Oxford cut short Philip's career there. Students 
were scattered in all directions. At seventeen Sidney left 
the University. He did not return to it. His education 
was pursued thereafter in a wider sphere. 



IV 

A year later Sidney obtained permission from the Queen to 
travel abroad for the extended period of two years. Thereby 
he gained a more extended knowledge of life and letters 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 71 

than was accessible at home. The value of foreign travel 
as a means of education was never better under- Foreign 
stood, in spite of rudimentary means of locomo- frac- 
tion, than by the upper classes of Elizabethan England. 
All who drank deep of the new culture had seen ' the 
wonders of the world abroad.' Sidney's keen-witted uncle, 
Leicester, recognised that his nephew, despite his promise, 
was as yet ' young and raw.' The French Court was already 
famed for its courtesy. Thither his uncle sent him with 
a letter of introduction to the English Ambassador there, 
Sir Francis Walsingham. Walsingham, a politician of rare 
acumen, and a man of cultivated taste, had fashioned himself 
on the model of Macchiavelli, the Florentine. Intercourse 
with him was well qualified to sharpen a pensive youth's 
intellect. 

Sidney's foreign tour was only destined to begin in France. 
It was to extend to both the east and south of Europe. His 

Parisian experiences, as events proved, were cal- 

Tn Paris, 
culated to widen his views of life and deepen his 

serious temper more effectually than to polish his manners 

or to foster in him social graces. Sidney stayed three 

months at the English Embassy in Paris. He went to the 

French Court, and was well received by the Protestant 

leaders, the leaders of the Huguenots, a resolute minority 

of the French people, who were pledged to convert France 

at all hazards into a Protestant country. Ronsard was the 

living master of French poetry, and Sidney readily yielded 

himself to the fascination of the delicate harmonies and 

classical imagery of the Frenchman's muse. But while Philip 

was still forming his first impressions of the French capital, 

Paris and the world suffered a great shock. The forces of 

civilisation seemed in an instant paralyzed. The massacre 

of the Protestants in Paris by the French Government — 



72 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

or the leaders of the Catholic majority — on St. Batholomew's 
The St. -Day (23rd August 1572) is one of those crimes 

lomew" °^ history of which none can read without a 

Massacre. shudder. For the time it gave new life to the 
worst traditions of barbarism. Sidney was safe at the em- 
bassy, and ran no personal risk while the fiendish work was 
in progress. But his proximity to this Catholic carnival 
of blood inflamed his hatred of the cause to which it minis- 
tered, and intensified his Protestant ardour. Until his death 
every persecuted Huguenot could reckon in him a devoted 
friend. 

When the news of the great crime reached England Sid- 
ney's friends were alarmed for his safety. Lord Burghley 

and Lord Leicester bade Walsinsrham procure pass- 
Departure of r 
for ports for the youth to leave France for Germany. 
Germany. 

Religious turmoil — the strife of Protestant and 

Catholic — infected Germany as well as France, but the scale 
in Germany seemed turning in the Protestant direction, and 
there was small likelihood there of danger to a Protestant 
traveller. 

In Germany learning of the severest type was then, as 
now, sedulously cultivated. Sidney soon reached Frankfort. 

There he lodged with Andrew Wechel, a learned 
The meet- 
ing with printer in Hebrew and Greek, and gathered under 
Languet. 

his roof the latest fruit of Renaissance scholarship. 

Printing — still a comparatively new art — was a learned and 
a scholarly profession, and German printers had earned a 
high repute for disinterested encouragement of classical 
proficiency. A fellow-lodger at this learned printer's house 
was Hubert Languet, a Huguenot controversialist and scholar. 
Languet, a quiet thoughtful student, was fifty-four years 
old, no less than thirty-five years Sidney's senior. But, 
despite the disparity of age, Sidney's heart went out at 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 73 

once to the exile from France for conscience' sake. The 

Frenchman on his side was attracted by the sympathetic 

bearing of the young traveller, and there sprang up between 

them a lasting and attractive friendship. Languet, Sidney 

said afterwards, taught him all he knew of literature and 

religion. 

From Frankfort Sidney went on to Vienna, the capital 

of Austria, and the home of the ruler of the Holy Roman 

Empire. There the Renaissance was held in check 

At Vienna, 
by mediasval tradition and prej udice, and Sidney s 

first stay there was short. For the moment Vienna was a 
mere halting-place in his progress towards what was the 
land of promise for all enlightened wayfarers. He passed 
quickly to the true home of the Renaissance, — to Italy, where 
all the artistic, literary, and scientific impulses of contempo- 
rary culture were still aglow with the fire of the new spirit. 

Most of his time was spent in Venice. That 

At Venice, 
city of the sea seemed to him to owe its existence 

to the rod of an enchanter, and cast on him the spell of 
her artistic and intellectual triumphs in their glistening fresh- 
ness. At Venice Sidney studied with characteristic versa- 
tility the newest developments of astronomy and music. He 
read much history and current Italian literature. He steeped 
himself in the affectations of the disciples of the dead 
Petrarch, and eagerly absorbed the rich verse of the living 
Tasso. He was entertained magnificently by Venetian mer- 
chants. But above all he came to know the great Italian 
painters, Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese, in whom Venetian 
pictorial art, if not the pictorial art of the world, came nearest 
perfection. In all directions Sidney came to close quarters 
with contemporary culture of the most finished kind. 

The sensual levities of Venetian society made no appeal 
to Sidney, who still took life in a solemn spirit. He avoided 



74 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

the pleasures of youth. His friends thought him almost too 
Seriousness serious > too sa( * ant * thoughtful for a young man 
of temper. Q f t wen ty or twenty-one. Sidney admitted that he 
was ' more sober than my age or business requires,' and he 
endured patiently the sarcasms of those to whom zeal for 
things of the mind was always a synonym for dulness and 
boredom. Although he was a good horseman, he was never 
a sportsman, and the story is told by a friend, Sir John 
Harington, that of the noble and fashionable recreations of 
hawking and hunting, Sidney was wont to say that next to 
hunting, he liked hawking worst. The falconers and hunters, 
Harington proceeded, would be even with him, and would 
say that bookish fellows such as he could judge of no sports 
but those within the verge of the fair fields of Helicon, 
Pindus and Parnassus. It was no brilliant jest, but the 
anecdote testifies to the exceptional refinement of temper and 
the independence of social convention that Sidney acquired 
early and enjoyed in permanence. 

Not that Sidney had keen eyes and ears only for what was 
passing about him in spheres of literature and art. Every 
serious interest that weighed with intelligent men found some 
Protestant ecno * n ^is Dem g- He was fast gathering political 
zeal - convictions on his foreign tour; he was watching 

narrowly the strife of Protestant and Catholic, and his 
nascent enthusiasm for the future of the Protestant religion 
in Europe, which he identified with the free development of 
human thought, mounted high. 

As the nephew of the Queen of England's favourite, Leices- 
ter, Sidney could count on a respectful hearing, when he 

enunciated political opinions. Occult English 
Diplomatic 
employ- diplomacy honeycombed continental courts, and 

those in close touch at home with the English 

sovereign were credited with an exaggerated power over 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 75 

her, which it was to the advantage of foreign potentates to 
conciliate. Sidney, as his continental tour lengthened, and 
the attractions of his personality attained wider recognition, 
was held to reflect something of his uncle's influence and his 
country's glory. When he returned to Vienna from Venice, 
there was talk of his offering himself as a candidate for 
a European throne — the vacant throne of Poland — which 
was filled by electoral vote. The suggestion came to nothing, 
but it illustrated the spreading faith in his fitness for po- 
litical responsibilities. Finally, in his anxiety to perfect his 
political experience, he accepted an offer of employment 
as Secretary at the English Legation in Vienna. Despite his 
antipathy to sport, he yielded to friendly advice, and learned, 
in the Austrian capital, horsemanship — all the intricate graces 
of the equestrian art — of the Emperor's esquire of the 
stables. 

Sidney's friends in England were growing alarmed at his 
long absence on the Continent of Europe. They had not 

yet fully understood him. They feared that he 

J J J End of the 

might be converted to Catholicism, which in Aus- foreign 

tria had mastered the Protestant revolt, or that he 
might be corrupted by the fantastic vice of Italy. At his 
friends' instance, when three years — a goodly part of his 
short life — had ended, he made his way home. On the 
journey he greatly extended his intercourse with scholars 
who were settled in Germany. At Heidelberg he met the 
greatest of scholar-printers, Henri Etienne or Stephens. 
Stephens, whose name is honoured by all who honour scholar- 
ship, afterwards dedicated to Sidney an edition — an editio 
princeps — of a late Greek historian, Herodian. Sidney re- 
turned home under the sway of the purest influences that 
dominated the art, literature, and scholarship of the Con- 
tinental Renaissance. His moral sense had triumphed over 



76 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

the current temptations to sensual indulgence. His Pro- 
testantism was untainted. Only that which was of good 
repute had lent sustenance to his mind or heart. 

v 

Settled in England, Sidney, like all young men of good 

family, was formally presented to his sovereign. As nephew 

of the Court favourite, Leicester, he was heartily 
At Court. Tiiz-k t -i • ■% 

welcomed by the Queen, and was admitted to the 

select circle of her attendants. Attached to the Court 
he largely occupied his time in its splendid recreations. He 
At Kenil- was a ^ Kenilworth in 1576 when his uncle 
worth. Leicester gave that elaborate and fantastic enter- 

tainment in honour of the Queen's visit, which fills a glow- 
ing page in Elizabethan history. It is reasonable to conjec- 
ture that in the crowd of neighbouring peasants who came 
to gaze at the gorgeous spectacles — the decorations, the 
triumphal arches, the masques, the songs, the fireworks — 
was John Shakespeare, from Stratford-on-Avon, a dozen 
miles off, and that John brought with him his eldest son 
William — the poet and dramatist, whose fame was completely 
to eclipse that of any of the great lords and ladies in the 
retinue of their sovereign. Reminiscences of the great fete, 
with its magnificent pageantry, are traceable in a spirited 
speech of the dramatist's A Midsummer Night's Dream. 
They are actual incidents in the scenic and musical devices 
at Kenilworth which Oberon describes in his picture of 

'A mermaid on a dolphin's back, 
[Uttering] such dulcet and harmonious breath, 
That the rude sea grew civil at her song.' 

But if Sidney's uncle sought by his splendid shows inex- 
tricably to entangle the Queen's affections, he failed. ' Young 
Cupid's fiery shaft' missed its aim; 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 77 

'And the imperial votaress passed on 
In maiden meditation, fancy free.' 

From Kenilworth Sidney went on a visit with his sove- 
reign to another great house, Chartley Castle, the owner of 
which, the first Earl of Essex, was Leicester's p en elope 
successor as the Queen's host. The visit exerted Devereux - 
important influence on Philip's future. There he first met 
the Earl's daughter Penelope, who, although then only a girl 
of twelve, was soon to excite in him a deep, if not passionate, 
interest. It was, however, her father, the Earl of Essex, 
who like so many other eminent men and women, first fell 
under Sidney's spell. The Earl delighted in the young 
man's sympathetic society, and invited him to accompany 
him to Ireland, whither he went to fill a high official post. 
Sidney's father was once again Lord Deputy of Ireland, and 
Sidney was glad of the opportunity of visiting his family. 
Together he and his new friend crossed the Irish Channel. 
But the journey had an unhappy outcome. The Earl of 
Essex was taken ill at Dublin and died immediately after 
he had landed. His last words were unqualified love and 
admiration for Philip. ' I wish him well — so well that, 
if God move their hearts, I wish that he might match with 
my daughter. I call him son — he is so wise, virtuous, and 
godly. If he go on in the course he hath begun, he will 
be as famous and worthy a gentleman as ever England 
bred.' 

The Earl's dying wish that he should marry his daughter 
bore wayward fruit; it was fraught with consequences for 
which the Earl had not looked. Philip was now «Astrophel 
a serious youth of twenty-two; Penelope was only andStella -' 
fourteen. Like her brother, the new Earl of Essex, who 
was to succeed the Earl of Leicester in Queen Elizabeth's 



78 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

favour, and then, after much storm and strife, to sacrifice 
his life to pique and uncontrollable temper, Penelope De- 
vereux was impetuous and precocious. She was gifted with 
a coquettish disposition, which was of doubtful augury for 
the happiness of herself and her admirers. Encouraged by 
her dead father's hopes, she sought Philip's admiration. He 
made kindly response. Passion did not enslave him. A 
gentle attachment sprang up between them, and Sidney 
turned it to literary account. In accordance with the fashion 
of the day he began addressing to Penelope a series of 
sonnets, in which he called himself ' Astrophel ' and the 
young girl ' Stella.' Nothing came of this courtship except 
the sonnets. Penelope soon married another. Sidney, a 
few years later, also married another. But ' Astrophel,' 
with full approval of his sister and subsequently of his wife, 
never ceased to cultivate a platonic and literary friendship 
with the daughter of his dead friend, the Earl of Essex, 
both while she was a maid and after she became another's 
wife. He continued to address poetry to ' Stella ' till near 
his death. 

The sonnet-sequence called ' Astrophel and Stella,' which 
owed its being to Sidney's faculty for friendship, was prob- 
Sidnev's a ^7 Sidney's earliest sustained attempt at litera- 

sonnets. ture. The collection illustrates with exceptional 

clearness the influence that the Renaissance literature of 
France and Italy had exerted on him during his recent 
travels. By these sonnets, too, he signally developed a 
tract of literature, which had hitherto yielded in England 
a barren harvest. 

Though Dante was an admirable sonnetteer, it was his 
successor, Petrarch, in the fourteenth century, whose example 
gave the sonnet its lasting vogue in Europe. The far-famed 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 79 

collection of sonnets which Petrarch addressed to his lady- 
love Laura generated, not only in his own country 

but also in France and Spain, a spirit of imitation of the 

sonnet. 
and adaptation which was exceptionally active 

while Sidney was on his travels. Early in the sixteenth 
century two of Henry vm/s courtiers, Sir Thomas Wyatt 
and the Earl of Surrey, had made some effort to familiarise 
the English people with Petrarch's work, by rendering por- 
tions of it into the English tongue. But the effort ceased 
with their death. Subsequently, in Sidney's youth, the vogue 
of the Petrarchan sonnet spread to France. The contem- 
porary poets, Ronsard, Du Bellay, and their associates, wrote 
thousands of sonnets on the Italian model. It was in France 
that Sidney practically discovered the sonnet for England 
anew. He, like two other poets of his own generation, 
Thomas Watson and Edmund Spenser, who essayed sonnet- 
teering about the same time, gained his first knowledge of 
the sonnet from the recent French development of it, with 
which his visit to Paris familiarised him, rather than from 
its original Italian source, of which he drank later. Not 
that Sidney did not quickly pass from the examples of 
France, to the parent efforts of Italy, but it was France, 
as the undertone of his sonnets prove, that gave the first 
spur to Sidney's sonnetteering energy. The influence of 
Ronsard is at least as conspicuous as that of Petrarch, 
and of Petrarch's sixteenth-century disciples in Italy. But, 
in whatever proportions the inspiration is to be precisely 
distributed between France and Italy, nearly all of it came 
from the Continent of Europe. Sidney's endeavour quickly 
acquired in England an extended vogue, and thereby Sidney 
helped to draw Elizabethan poetry into the broad currents 
of continental culture. 

The sonnet of sixteenth-century Europe was steeped in 



80 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

the Platonic idealism which Petrarch had first conspicuously 
Platonic enlisted in the service of poetry. Earthly beauty 
idealism. was ^ e re fl ec tion of an eternal celestial type, and 
the personal experiences of the sonnetteer were subordinated 
to the final aim of celebrating the praises of the immortal 
pattern or idea of incorporeal beauty. The path of the 
sonnetteer as defined by the Petrarchists — disciples of Pe- 
trarch in Italy and France— was bounded by a series of 
conventional conceits, which gave little scope to the writer's 
original invention. Genuine affairs of the heart, the un- 
controllable fever of passion, could have only remote and 
shadowy concern with the misty idealism and hyperbolical 
fancies of which the sonnet had to be woven. Sidney's 
addresses to ' Stella ' follow with fidelity Petrarch's arche- 
typal celebration of his love for Laura. Petrarchan idealism 
permeates his imagination. The far-fetched course, which 
the exposition of his amorous experience pursues, is defined 
by his reading in the poetry of Petrarch, and of Petrarch's 
French and Italian pupils. His hopes and fears, his apos- 
trophes to the river Thames, to sleep, to the nightingale, 
to the moon, and to his lady-love's eyes, sound many a 
sweet and sympathetic note, but most of them echo the 
foreign voices. At times Sidney's lines are endowed with a 
finer music than English ears can detect in the original har- 
monies, but he nearly always moves in the circle of sentiment 
and idea which foreign effort had consecrated to the son- 
net. To the end he was loyal to his masters, and he closes 
his addresses to 'Stella ' in Petrarch's most characteristic 
key. In his concluding sonnet he adapts with rare felicity 
the Italian poet's solemn and impressive renunciation of love's 
empire : — 

'Leave me, O love, which reachest but to dust, 
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things.' 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 81 

Perfect sincerity and sympathy distinguish Sidney's final act 
of homage to the greatest of his poetic masters. 

None of Sidney's poetic fellow-countrymen assimilated 
more thoroughly the manner or matter of their poetic tutors. 
In metrical respects especially, Sidney showed as a sonnet- 
teer far greater loyalty to foreign models than any of the 

Elizabethan sonnetteers who succeeded him. Al- 

The metre 

most all his successors, while they endeavoured to of the 

sonnets. 

reproduce the foreign imagery and ideas, ignored 

foreign rules of prosody. Sidney sought to reproduce the 
foreign metres as well as the foreign imagery and ideas. 
In gradually unfolding the single idea which the true son- 
net develops, he knew the value of quatrains and tercets 
linked together by interlaced rhymes. He saw the danger 
of incoherence or abruptness in the accepted English habit 
of terminating the poem by a couplet, in which the rhymes 
were unconnected with those preceding it. Five rhymes, 
variously distributed (not seven rhymes, after the later Eng- 
lish rule), sufficed for the foreign sonnet, and Sidney proved 
that a close student of foreign literature could work out 
an English sonnet under like restriction without loss of 
energy. 

Sidney's sonnets were in his lifetime circulated only in 
manuscript. They were first published five years after his 

death. Whether in manuscript or in print they 

Influence 
met with an extraordinarily enthusiastic reception, of his 

sonnets. 
and stimulated sonnetteering activity in Eliza- 
bethan England to an extent which has had no parallel 
at later epochs. ' Stella,' Sidney's poetic heroine, received 
in England for a generation homage resembling that which 
was accorded in Italy to Laura, Petrarch's poetic heroine, 
whose lineaments she reflected. Apart from considerations 
of poetic merit, Sidney's sonnets form an imposing land- 

P 



82 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

mark in the annals of English literature, by virtue of the 
popularity they conferred on the practice of penning long 
series or sequences of sonnets of love. Their progeny is 
legion. In all ranks of the literary hierarchy their issue 
abounded. Sidney's efforts were the moving cause of Spen- 
ser's collection of ' Amoretti,' and it is more important to 
record that to their example stands conspicuously in- 
debted the great sonnetteering achievement of Shakespeare 
himself. 

VI 

The composition of Sidney's sonnets was pursued amid the 

practical work of life. It was never his ambition nor his 

intention to become a professional poet and man 
No pro- r r 

fessional of letters. His devotion to literature shed its glow 

over all his interests. But his most active ener- 
gies were absorbed by other than literary endeavours. ' The 
truth is/ wrote his friend Greville, ' his end was not writ- 
ing, even while he wrote, nor his knowledge moulded for 
tables and schools, — but both his wit and understanding bent 
upon his heart, to make himself and others, not in words 
or opinion, but in life and action, good and great.' 

Like all young men of his rank and prospects, Sidney 
proposed to devote the main part of his career to the public 
Political service. An early opportunity of gratifying his 

ambitions. ^^ seeme< l to offer. Early in 1577, while he 
was no more than twenty-three, an active political career 
appeared to await his will. He was entrusted with a diplo- 
matic mission, which, although it was of an elementary 
type, put no small strain on his youthful faculties. He was 
bidden carry messages of congratulation from Queen Eliza- 
beth to two foreign sovereigns, both of whom had just 
succeeded to their thrones, the Elector Palatine at Heidel- 
berg, and the new Emperor Rudolph n. at Prague. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 83 

Sidney threw himself into his work with vigour and en- 
thusiasm — with more vigour indeed than was habitual to the 
hardened politician. He would do more than the mere blood- 
less work which diplomacy required of him. He would break 
a lance for his personal principles as well as carry out his 
sovereign's commands. He endeavoured to influence the 
policy and aspirations of the rulers of the countries that he 
visited. It was indiscretion on the part of an ambassador 
which was likely to breed trouble. 

In Heidelberg, the capital city of the Elector Palatine's 

Protestant state, the people were divided between Lutherans 

and Calvinists, and the two parties were at deadly 

At Heidel- 
enmity with one another. Sidney urged on both berg and 

sides the need of reconciliation, but neither ap- 
proved with any warmth the interference of a foreigner. 
Throughout Germany he urged on rulers the formation of a 
great Protestant league to stem the spread of Catholic doc- 
trine. At the Catholic Court of Vienna where he had already 
accepted frequent hospitalities and was held in high esteem, 
he slightly changed his tone. While he sought to consolidate 
and unify the Protestant views of Europe, he desired to 
sow dissension among the Catholic powers. He lectured the 
newly crowned Emperor on the iniquities of Spain and 
Rome, and urged on him the duty of forming another league, 
a great league of nations to resist Spanish and Romish 
tyranny. He was listened to civilly, if not with serious 
attention. 

A more grateful experience befell him before he returned 
home. On his way back to England he was ordered by the 
Queen's Government to visit Antwerp, that city At 
which had been the parent of More's Utopia, in Antwer P- 
order to congratulate the Protestant prince and general, 
William the Silent, Prince of Orange, on the birth of a son. 



84 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

It was not only his own cultured fellow-countrymen nor the 
poets and artists of foreign lands who felt the spell of 
Sidney's character. The great Dutch leader, the taciturn 
master of the supreme arts of strategy in peace and war, 
was captivated by the young Englishman's fervour and in- 
telligence. Sidney exerted on him all the fascination which 
Lord Burghley and the Earl of Essex had acknowledged. 
The Prince of Orange, who was reputed never to speak 
a needless word, declared that the Queen of England had 
in Sidney one of the greatest and ripest counsellors that 
could be found in Europe. 

Despite some characteristic display of youthful impetuos- 
ity which escaped Prince William's notice, the tour greatly 

added to Sidney's reputation. The Queen's Sec- 
His success. , . 

retary, Walsmgham, wrote to Sidney s lather m 

Ireland on the young man's return: ' There hath not been 
any gentleman, I am sure, these many years, that hath gone 
through so honourable a charge with as good commenda- 
tions as he.' 

Sidney's energy and activity were now untamable. ' Life 
and action ' were now all in all to him. He put no limits to 

the possibilities of his achievement. He believed 

His 

views on himself capable of solving the most perplexing of 

political problems. His father, who was a liberal 
and tolerant statesman, was distracted by the difficulties in- 
separable from Irish rule. With the self-confidence that 
came of the laudations of the great, Sidney thought to aid 
him by writing in detail on the perennial problem. He had 
faith in the justice of his father's methods of government, 
which were called in question by selfish timeservers in high 
places. Philip pointed to the dangers of the arrogant pre- 
tensions of the Anglo-Irish nobility, immigrants from Eng- 
land, who dominated the native population. He recommended 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 85 

equality of taxation. He showed a reasonable interest in the 
native Irish which few other Elizabethans admitted, and 
avowed small sympathy with the Irish landlord, deference 
to whose selfish claims habitually guided the home policy. 
But Sidney was preaching to deaf ears, and was merely 
jeopardising his chances of advancement. 

VII 

No regular work in the service of the state was offered 
Sidney. Without official occupation at Court, he had no 
opportunity there of bending his wit and under- 
standing to the exploits of ' life and action ' for occupa- 
tions. 
which he was yearning. He was impelled to seek 

compensation in those intellectual interests, which his tem- 
perament, despite his professions to the contrary, would 
never allow him to forego entirely. For the entertainment 
of the Queen, when she was paying another visit to his 
uncle Leicester, he wrote a crude masque of conventional 
adulation, called ' The Lady of the May.' The slender effort 
abounds in classical conceits, and seeks to satirise classical 
pedantry. But it gives no promise of dramatic faculty. The 
little piece has, however, historic value, because Shakespeare 
read it, and partly assimilated it in his Love's Labour's Lost. 
In other directions Sidney gave fuller scope to his cultured 
intelligence. He sought friends amongst poets, painters, 
musicians, and engineers (or mechanicians), and he showed 
stimulating sympathy with their work and ambition. It was 
with men of letters that he found himself most at home, 
and with the greatest Elizabethan poet of all who were the 
fore-runners of Shakespeare he formed, by a fortunate 
chance, at a midmost point of his adult career, a memorable 
friendship, which increases the dignity and interest of his 
own career. 



86 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

Sidney was often at his uncle Leicester's house in London, 
and there Edmund Spenser, the poet and moralist of the 
Faerie Queene, was employed for a time in a secretarial 
capacity. The two men met, and a warm affection at once 

sprang up between them. Spenser was Sidney's 
Friendship 

with senior by two years; when they became acquainted 

Spenser. 

with one another m 1578, Sidney was twenty-four, 

Spenser was twenty-six. It was the younger man whom 
the elder at first hailed as master: Spenser was anxious to 
rank as Sidney's admiring disciple. But the means he took 
to announce this relationship put each man in his rightful 
place. Spenser's first published work — that book which 
heralded the great Elizabethan era of literature — the Shep- 
Jieards Calender, is distinguished by a dedication to Sidney, 
' the president,' Spenser calls him, ' of nobleness and chiv- 
alry.' The patron recognised that he thereby received more 
honour than he could confer. Of all reputations the one that 
Sidney most valued was that of association with the noblest 
figure in the literature of his day. 

Other men of letters, prominent among whom was the 
courtier poet, Sir Edward Dyer, joined Sidney and Spenser 
The liter- ^ social intercourse at Leicester House. The 
of^The nights were passed in eager literary debate. The 

Areopagus.' com p an y formed itself into a literary club, all 
members of which were fired with literary zeal — with zeal 
for creating an English literature that should compete with 
the best that the Continent had yet produced. A like am- 
bition had fired a band of Frenchmen of the previous genera- 
tion, when returning from travel in Italy. A like ambition 
had led to the formation in France of that little regiment of 
cultured lyric poets which christened itself ' La Pleiade.' 
As in France so in England, the poetic pioneers lay under 
the spell of the great classical literature, knowledge of which 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 87 

had lately reached them from Italy. The future of literature 
depended, they erroneously believed, on the closeness with 
which it fashioned itself on classical models. Classical style, 
classical expression, was the philosopher's stone which could 
convert the dross of the vernacular into literary gold. At 
the club, which met at Leicester House, and bore the classical 
title of ' The Areopagus,' the members were dazzled for the 
time by this perilous theory. They committed themselves to 
the heretical belief that rhyme and accent, the natural con- 
comitants of English verse, were vulgar and unrefined. It 
was incumbent on the new poets if they would attain lasting 
glory to acclimatise in English poetry the Latin metre of 
quantity, which the genius of Virgil and Horace had ennobled. 

The principle which underlay this endeavour was miscon- 
ceived, and only required to be practically applied to be con- 
victed of impotence. Modern literature might well assimilate 
classical ideas, but classical prosody or syntax had no juster 
place in a modern language than a Greek chiton or a Roman 
toga in a modern wardrobe. Sidney, like fellow-members of 
the Club, experimented in English sapphics and hexameters 
and elegiacs, but the uncouth results brought home classical 
to genuine lovers of poetry that the movement was metres - 
marching in a wrong direction. When, after a year's trial, 
Sidney's literary club was dissolved, English poetry was 
proving beyond risk of doubt, that accent and rhyme were 
its only instruments of work, and that the classical fashions 
of prosody or syntax were barbarisms outside the ancient 
languages of Rome or Greece. Versatility of interest was 
characteristic of Sidney and his friends. It had suddenly 
led them into error, but it led them out again with almost 
equal celerity. 

Hereditary rank combined with his individual tastes and 
character to facilitate Sidney's assumption of a leader's place 



88 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

in the intellectual society of London. At the same time Sid- 
ney steadily maintained his interest in the literary efforts of 
Continental Europe. Insularity was foreign to the literary 
spirit of the Elizabethan age. Especially did Sidney and 
his associates cherish that fraternal feeling which binds to- 
gether literary workers of all races and countries. 
Intercourse 

with His breadth of intellectual sympathy comes into 

Bruno. 

peculiar prominence in the reports of the recep- 
tion which he and his friends accorded to the Italian phil- 
osopher, Giordano Bruno, on his visit to London in 1584. 
At the house of his friend, Fulke Greville, Sidney and Bruno 
often met. Together they discussed moral, metaphysical, 
mathematical and natural scientific speculations. The Italian 
poured into Sidney's eager ears the reason for Galileo's new 
belief that the earth moves round the sun. No teacher could 
have found a more receptive pupil. Bruno proved his regard 
for Sidney's sympathetic attention by dedicating to him two 
of his best known speculative works, and thus linked his 
name with the most advanced thought of the Renaissance. 
Not that Sidney meekly accepted Bruno's opinions. Sidney's 
faith in Christianity was not easily shaken. With Chris- 
tianity Brimo had small concern. His philosophy was the 
philosophy of doubt. Like the Utopians of Sir Thomas 
More, Bruno was a vague Pantheist, to whom the truths 
of orthodox Christianity did not appeal. A fearless thinker, 
he was ultimately burnt with revolting brutality as a heretic 
at Rome in 1600. Religious toleration came naturally to 
Sidney's active and inquisitive mind. He gave Bruno's re- 
ligious opinions courteous consideration. They deeply inter- 
ested him. But he did not adopt them. He zealously 
cultivated independence of mind and, as if to prove his 
equable temper, at the same time as he was debating the 
bases of religion with Bruno, he was translating a perfectly 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 89 

orthodox treatise on the Christian religion by a distinguished 
French Protestant friend, De Mornay. When De Mornay 
visited London, Sidney was no less profuse in hospitality to 
him than to Bruno. Every man of intellectual tastes at- 
tracted him, but he was steadfast to his own conviction, and 
was not hastily led away by novel speculation, even if he 
were fascinated by the charm of exposition which hovered 
on its inventor's lips. 



vm 

To another form of literary endeavour Sidney's attention 
was diverted somewhat against his will. English Drama was 
still in its infancy. Comedy had not yet emerged Sidney and 
from the shell of horseplay and burlesque and tae ^ >rama - 
rusticity; genuine humour or genuine romance was to develop 
later. Tragedy was still a bombastic presentment of blood 
and battle, of barbarous and sordid crime. But the embryonic 
Drama was encouraged by men of enlightenment, and by 
none so warmly as by the cultured leaders of the aristocracy. 
To the leisured classes any new form of recreation is wel- 
come, and the drama could adapt itself to all gradations of 
literary taste among its patrons. The acting profession in 
England was first organised under the protection of the 
nobility. Like other great noblemen, Sidney's uncle Leicester 
took under his patronage a band of men who went about 
the country engaged in rudimentary dramatic performances. 
The company of actors called itself the Earl of Leicester's 
men or his servants. It ultimately developed into that best 
of all organised bands of Elizabethan actors, which was 
glorified by Shakespeare's membership. Sidney interested 
himself in the company of players which was under the 
patronage of his uncle. He stood godfather to the son of 



90 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

one of its leaders, a very famous comic actor, Richard Tarle- 
ton — one of the earliest English actors whose name has 
escaped oblivion. But there was nothing individual in Sid- 
ney's attitude to actors. His attitude was the conventional 
one of his class. 

Despite the favour of the great, the prospects of the 
Drama in England in those days of infancy were critical and 
Puritan uncertain. It was a new development in England 

attacks. an( j j ia( j \fai e ^^ ft s nov elty to recommend it. Its 

artistic future was unforeseen. Its earliest manifestation, 
too, excited the fears and animosity of the growing Puri- 
tan sentiment of the country. To the delight in Art which 
the Renaissance encouraged, the Puritan feeling, when once 
roused, was mortally opposed. Puritanism was in fact a 
reactionary movement against the delights in things of the 
sense which the study of ancient literature fostered. Puri- 
tanism was impatient of the current culture. It viewed all 
recreation with distrust, and detected in most forms of amuse- 
ment signs of sin. Especially did the Drama, the most 
recent outcome of the Renaissance of paganism, rouse ugly 
suspicions in the Puritan minds. Its lawfulness in a Chris- 
tian commonwealth was doubted. Controversy arose as to 
whether or no the Drama was an emanation of the devil: 
whether or no the theatre was to be tolerated by members 
of Christ's Church. 

The Puritan attack was bitter and persistent. The Puritan 

champions sought recruits from all ranks of society and were 

anxious to divert from the new-born theatre the 
Stephen 
Gosson favour of the nobility. Their fanaticism lent 

seeks 

Sidney's them strength. Their methods were none too 

scrupulous. Sidney was known to be of serious 

temper; he was held in esteem in fashionable society. His 

countenance was worth the winning for any cause. Accord- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 91 

ingly one of the most outspoken of the Puritan contro- 
versialists — one of the warmest foes of the budding Drama 
— endeavoured, by a device that had nothing but boldness 
to excuse it, to press Sidney's influence into his service. 
Without asking Sidney's leave, Stephen Gosson, who had 
once been himself a writer of plays and now wrote with 
the fury of an apostate, dedicated to Sidney a virulent invec- 
tive, or libel, on plays, players, and dramatists, which he 
called The School of Abuse. He affected to take for granted 
Sidney's sympathy. To him he dedicated his diatribe, and 
paraded his name in the preface of the book as an illiberal 
foe of dramatic literature. 

The misrepresentation of Sidney's sentiment was unblush- 
ing. Sidney's soul rebelled against the obscurantist views to 

which the pamphleteer committed him. One might 

. Sidney's 

have as justly dedicated to Sir Thomas More a resent- 

Lutheran tract and credited him with enthusiasm 

for the doctrines of Luther. No truce was possible between 

Sidney and one who failed to see in the Drama which Greeks 

and Romans had especially dignified an honoured branch of 

literature. Sidney retaliated with spirit. Turning the tables 

on the offending author, he set to work on an enlightened 

defence of the Drama. The essay which he called an Apolo- 

gie for Poetrie, embodied his firmest convictions on the value 

to life of literature and works of imagination. 

Sidney's retort to Gosson went far beyond its immediate 

purpose. He did much more than expound the worth of the 

Drama. The Drama was for him one of many 

J The 
manifestations of poetry. It was to the defence Apologie 

foT PoctVZC 

of the whole poetic art that he bent his energies. 
In an opening paragraph he calls himself a ' piece of a 
logician,' and it is a logical mode of argument that he pur- 
sues. Nowhere is the fine quality of Sidney's intellect seen 



92 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

to better advantage. Nowhere else does he illustrate with 

equal liberality the breadth of his literary sympathies or 

his instinct for scholarship. He had studied not only the 

critical philosophy of Aristotle, together with Plato's general 

discussions of the merits and defects of poetry, but had 

steeped himself in the elaborate criticism of the Renaissance 

scholars, Minturno and Julius Caesar Scaliger, who had in 

their treatises, named respectively ' De Poeta ' and ' Poetice,' 

attempted, in the middle of the sixteenth century, to codify 

anew the principles and practices of poetry. 

Despite the extent and variety of his sources of learning, 

Sidney retained full mastery of his authorities, and welds 

them together with convincing effect. The catholicity of his 

literary taste preserved him from pedantry. A 
Freedom J r f j 

from popular ballad sung with heartiness roused him as 

pedantry. 

with a trumpet, while the gorgeous eloquence of 

Pindar could do no more. Sidney wrote with lucidity. His 
style is coloured by his enthusiasm for all that elevates the 
mind of man. Nearly two centuries and a half later, Shel- 
ley, in emulation of Sidney, wrote another Defence of 
Poetry, where the poet's creed was again defined in language 
of singular beauty. No higher testimony to Sidney's sug- 
gestive force or influence can be offered than the fact that his 
tract should have engendered in Shelley's brain offspring of 
so rare a charm. 

Sidney's central proposition, to which all sections of the 
treatise converge, is that poetry is the noblest of all the 
The worth works of man. Philosophy and history are for 
of poetry. tfie most part mere handmaidens of poetry, which 
is the supreme teacher, and ranks as a creative agent beside 
Nature herself. To the ordinary matter-of-fact intellect of 
every age such a claim on behalf of poetry is barely intelli- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 93 

gible. That poetry is a ' deep thing, a teaching thing, the 
most surely and wisely elevating of human things,' is an 
assertion that sounds whimsical in the ears of the multitude 
of all epochs. It represents a faith whose adherents in every 
era have been few. Sidney gave reasons for it with excep- 
tional sincerity and logical force. In Elizabethan England 
the tendency to accept the belief was perhaps more widely 
disseminated than at any other period of English history. 
Certainly Sidney's words seem to have fallen on willing ears, 
and widened the ranks of the faithful. 

In details Sidney's Apologie for Poetrie lies open to criti- 
cism. He underrated the value of poetic expression and 
poetic form. Poetry embraced for him every ex- Confusion 
ercise of the imagination. Matter was for him poeTryand 
more valuable than manner. ' Verse,' he wrote, P rose - 
' is but an ornament, and no cause to poetry ; ' prose might 
consequently be as effective a vehicle of poetry as metrical 
composition. Though his main contention that poetry is 
the supreme teacher is not materially affected by the mis- 
conception, Sidney here falls a victim to a confusion of 
terms. The place of expression in poetry is overestimated 
when it is argued that it counts alone. But expression is the 
main factor. The functions of poetry and prose lie, too, for 
the most part, aloof from one another. Neither theory nor 
practice justifies a statement of their identity, even though 
on occasion they may traverse the same ground. Things of 
the mind are the fittest topic of prose which seeks to supply 
knowledge. Things of the emotions are the fittest topic of 
poetry which seeks to stimulate feeling. Prose is under no 
obligation to appeal to aught beside the intellect; poetry 
is under a primary obligation to appeal to the emotions and 
to the sense of sound. 



94 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

In one other respect Sidney disappoints us. After he has 

enumerated and denned with real insight the vari- 
Misunder- 

standings cms known classes of poetic effort, he offers an 
about 

English estimate of the past, present, and future posi- 

tion of English poetry. His commendations of 
Chaucer, Surrey, and his friend Spenser, satisfy a reasonable 
standard of criticism. But his insight fails him in his com- 
ments on the literary prospects of the English Drama. 
Reverence for Aristotle's laws, as they were developed by 
the classicists of the Renaissance, shackles his judgment. 
He ridicules the failure to observe the primeval unity of 
action or the later classical unities of place and time. He 
warmly denounces endeavours to echo in a single play the 
voices of comedy and tragedy. Tragi-comedy he anathema- 
tises. An obstinate conservatism mingled with his liberal 
sympathies and led him at times to confuse progress with 
anarchy. Sidney wrote before Elizabethan effort had proved 
the capacity of forms of dramatic art of which classical 
writers had not dreamed. 

But if Sidney's views of the Drama were halting and 
reactionary, he regained his clearness of vision in the con- 
Enlightened eluding pages of his great Apologie. His final 
conclusions. con( J em nation of strained conceits in lyrical poetry 
— although a fault from which his own verse is not always 
free — is wise and enlightened. He perceived that the 
English tongue was, if efficiently handled, comparable with 
Greek, and was far more pliant than Latin, in the power of 
giving harmonious life to poetic ideas. If he underrated 
the poetic promise of his age, his eloquent appeal to his 
fellow-countrymen at the end of his Apologie, to disown the 
' earth-creeping mind ' that ' cannot lift itself up to look into 
the sky of poetry,' proved for many a stirring call to arms. 
He took leave of his readers like a herald summoning to 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 95 

the poetic lists all the mighty combatants with whom the 
Elizabethan era was yet to be identified. 



But Sidney was soon summoned from these altitudes. 
Controversies in public and Court life were competing with 
literary debates for Sidney's attention. The Queen's favour 
was always difficult to keep. Her favourite, Leicester, Sid- 
ney's uncle, forfeited it for a time when the news Difficulties 
reached her of his secret marriage with that at Court - 
Countess of Essex who was mother of Sidney's Penelope, 
his poetic idol, ' Stella.' The Queen's wrath, when roused, 
always expended itself over a wide area, and it now involved 
all Leicester's family, including his nephew. 

There was much in Court life to alienate Sidney's genuine 
sympathies. Many of his fellow-courtiers were difficult com- 
panions. The ill-mannered Earl of Oxford always regarded 

Sidney with dislike and ridiculed his aspirations. 

Quarrels 
The Earl's wife was that daughter of the Prime with 

courtiers 

Minister Burghley whose hand in girlhood had 
been at first offered by her father to Sidney himself. 
Childish quarrels between Sidney and the Earl were fre- 
quent. Once, at the Queen's palace at Whitehall, while 
Sidney was playing tennis, the Earl insolently insisted on 
joining uninvited in the game. Sidney raised objections. 
The Earl bade all the players leave the court. Sidney pro- 
tested. The Earl called him ' a puppy.' Sidney retorted, 
truthfully if not very felicitously, ' Puppies are got by dogs, 
and children by men,' and then with greater point challenged 
the unmannerly nobleman to a duel. The dispute reached the 
Queen's ears. She forbade the encounter, and with great 
injustice ordered Sidney to apologise for an insult which 
he had directed at a man of higher rank than himself. Sid- 



96 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

ney declined, and the Queen's wrath against him increased. 
He was in no yielding mood, and sought no reconciliation. 

In the Queen's personal and political conduct there was 
at the moment much to offend his innermost convictions. He 
was resolved to forfeit altogether his position at Court 
rather than acquiesce in silence. The Queen was contem- 
plating marriage with the King of France's brother. On 
grounds of patriotism and of Protestantism he begged her 
to throw over a Frenchman and a Catholic. There was no 
lack of plainness or of boldness in this address to his 
prince. The result was inevitable. He was promptly 
excluded from the royal presence. 

Sidney's intellectual friends had long regretted the waste 
of his abilities which idle lounging about the Court entailed, 
j n and they viewed his taste of the royal anger with- 

retirement. out dejection. He, too, left the Court with a 
sense of relief. Preferment that should be commensurate 
with his character and abilities had long seemed a hopeless 
quest; vanity now appeared the only goal of a courtier's 
life. He could escape from it, with the knowledge that 
solace for his disappointments awaited him in the society 
of a beloved comrade, his sister, the Countess of Pem- 
broke, whose tastes were singularly like his own. At her 
husband's country house in Wiltshire he was always a wel- 
come guest, and there could cut himself off with a light heart 
from the mean and paltry pursuit of the royal countenance. 
In this period of enforced retirement he engaged with the 
Countess in literary recreation of an exacting kind. For her 
and his own amusement he wrote a romance. He called it 
the Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. It was the latest and 
most ambitious of all his literary endeavours, and gave him 
a world-wide repute. 

Sidney affected to set no value on the work, which exile 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 97 

from the central scene of the country's activities had given 
him the opportunity of essaying. He undertook it, he said, 
merely to fill up an idle hour and to amuse his The 
sister. ' Now, it is done only for you, only to rca w " 
you : ' he modestly told her ' if you keep it to yourself, or to 
such friends, who will weigh errors in the balance of good- 
will, I hope, for the father's sake, it will be pardoned, per- 
chance made much of, though in itself it have deformities. 
For indeed, for severer eyes it is not, being but a trifle, and 
that triflingly handled.' 

The work is far more serious than the deprecatory preface 
suggests. Sidney's pen must have travelled with lightning 
speed. Whatever views may be entertained of F ore i g n 
the literary merits of his book, it amazes one by models - 
its varied learning, its wealth of episode and its exceptional 
length. It was eulogised in its own day by Sidney's friend, 
Gabriel Harvey, as a ' gallant legendary, full of pleasurable 
accidents and profitable discourses; for three things especi- 
ally very notably — for amorous courting (he was young in 
years), for sage counselling (he was ripe in judgment), and 
for valorous fighting (his sovereign profession was arms) — 
and delightful pastime by way of pastoral exercises may pass 
for the fourth.' x The commendation is pitched in too amiable 
a key. The Arcadia is a jumble of discordant elements; but, 
despite its manifold defects, it proves its author to have 
caught a distant glimpse of the true art of fiction. 

The romance was acknowledged on its production to be a 
laborious act of homage to a long series of foreign literary 
influences. In his description of character and often in his 
style of narration he was thought to have assimilated the tone 
of the Latin historians Livy, Tacitus and the rest, and 
the modern chroniclers, Philippe de Comines and Guicciar- 

1 Pierces Supererogation, etc. 
G 



98 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

dini. The Arcadia is a compound of an endless number of 
simples, all of which are of foreign importation. Sidney 
proves in it more than in his sonnets or his critical tract his 
loyalty to foreign models and the catholicity of taste which 
he brought to the study of them. 

The corner stone of the edifice must be sought in a 
pastoral romance of Italy. A Neapolitan, Sanazzaro, seems 
to have been the first in modern Europe, very early in the 
sixteenth century, to apply the geographical Greek name of 
Arcadia to an imaginary realm of pastoral simplicity, where 
love alone held sway. Sanazzaro was only in part a creator. 
He was an enthusiastic disciple of Virgil, and he had read 
Theocritus. His leading aim was to develop in Italian prose 
the pastoral temper of these classical poets. But he brought 
to his work the new humanism of the Renaissance and 
broadened the interests and outlook of pastoral literature. 
His Italian Arcadia set an example which was eagerly fol- 
lowed by all sons of the Renaissance of whatever nationality. 
In Spain one George de Montemayor developed forty years 
later Sanazzaro's pastoral idealism in his fiction of Diana 
Inamorada, and the Spanish story gained a vogue only second 
to its Italian original. Sidney was proud to reckon himself 
a disciple of Montemayor the Spaniard, as well as of 
Sanazzaro the Neapolitan. 

But it was not exclusively on the foundations laid by 
Italian or Spaniard that Sidney's ample romantic fiction was 
based. Two other currents merged in its main stream. 

Sidney knew much of late Greek literary effort 
The Greek , J J 

novel of which produced, in the third century of the Chris- 

Heliodorus. . , „ _ 

txan era, the earliest specimen of prose fiction. It 

was the Graeco-Syrian Heliodorus, in his ' Aethiopian 
Tales,' who first wrote a prose novel of amorous intrigue. 
Heliodorus 's novels became popular in translation in every 



»*. . 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 99 

western country, and Sidney familiarised himself with them. 
But his literary horizon was not bounded either by the 
ancient literature of Greece or by the contemporary adapta- 
tions of classical literary energy. Feudalism had its literary 
exponents. Mediaeval France and Spain were rich in tales 
of chivalry and feudal adventure. The tedious narrative, for 
example, of Amadis of Gaul, which was mainly responsible 
for the mental perversion of Don Quixote, fired the Middle 
Ages with a genuine enthusiasm. That enthusiasm com- 
municated itself to Sidney. 

To each of these sources — the pastoral romances of the 
Renaissance of Italy and Spain, the Greek novel, and the 
mediaeval tales of chivalry — Sidney's Arcadia is 

almost equally indebted. But his idiosyncrasy was mingling 

of pastoral 

not wholly submerged. Possibly Sidney originally with 

chivalry 

thought to depict with philosophic calm in his and 

retirement from the Court the life of shepherds 
and shepherdesses, and thereby illustrate the contrast 
between the simplicity of nature and the complex ambitions 
of princes and princesses. But the theme rang hollow to one 
who had studied closely life and literature, who sought above 
all things to be sincere. To credit rusticity which he knew 
to be coarse, ignorant, and sensual, with unalloyed inno- 
cence was little short of fraud. To confine himself solely to 
pastoral incident, however realistically treated, was to court 
tameness. On his pastoral ground-plan, therefore, he grafted 
chivalric warfare of a mediaeval pattern, and intrigue in the 
late Greek spirit. 

Chivalric adventure is treated by Sidney for the most part 
with directness and intelligibility. At the outset of his 
Arcadia, two princely friends, Musidorus of Macedon and 
Pyrocles of Thessaly, who enjoy equal renown for military 
prowess, are separated in a shipwreck, and find asylum in 



LJQ. 



100 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

different lands. Each is entertained by the king of the 

country which harbours him, and is set at the head of an 

army. The two forces meet in battle. Neither commander 

recognises in the other his old friend, until they meet to 

decide the final issues of the strife in a hand-to-hand combat. 

Peace follows the generals' recognition of one another. The 

two friends are free to embark together on a fantastic quest 

of love in Arcadia. Each seeks the hand of an Arcadian 

princess, and they willingly involve themselves in the domestic 

and dynastic struggles which distract the Arcadian court 

and country. 

Sidney developed the design with bold incoherence. The 

exigences of love compel his heroes to disguise themselves. 

Musidorus, the lover of the Arcadian Princess 
The 
complex Pamela, assumes the part of a shepherd, calling 

himself Dorus; while Pyrocles, the lover of the 
Arcadian Princess Philoclea, in defiance of convention, 
metamorphoses himself into a woman; he arrays himself as 
an Amazon, and takes the feminine name of Zelmane. Out 
of this strange disguise is evolved a thread of story which 
winds itself intricately through nearly the whole of the 
romance. The Amazonian hero spreads unexpected havoc in 
the Arcadian court by attracting the affections of both the 
Princess's parents — of Basilius, the old king of Arcady, who 
believes him to be a woman; and of Synesia, the lascivious 
old queen, who perceives his true sex. The involutions and 
digressions of the plot are too numerous to permit full 
description. The extravagances grow more perplexing as the 
story develops. 

Arcadian realms exhibit in Sidney's pages few traditional 
features. The call of realism was in Sidney's ears the call 
of honesty, and his peasants divested themselves of ideal fea- 
tures for the ugly contours of fact. His shepherds and shep- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 101 

herdesses have long passed the age of innocent tranquillity. 
Their land is a prey to dragons and wild beasts, and their 
hearts are gnawed by human passions. Sidney had, too, a 
sense of the need of variety in fiction. New characters are 
constantly entering to distort and postpone the natural 
denouement of events. The work is merged in a succession 
of detached episodes and ceases to be an organic tale. Parts 
are much more valuable than the whole. Arguments 
of coarseness and refinement enjoy a bewildering contiguity. 
At one moment Platonic idealism sways the scene, and the 
spiritual significance of love and beauty overshadows their 
physical and material aspects. At the next moment we 
plunge into a turbid flood of abnormal passion. The exalted 
thought and aspiration of the Renaissance season Sidney's 
pages, but they do not exclude the grosser features of the 
movement. There are chapters which almost justify Mil- 
ton's sour censure of the whole book as ' a vain and amato- 
rious poem.' 1 

1 The text of the Arcadia suffers from the author's casual methods of com- 
position. Much of it survives in an unrevised shape. He seems to have 
himself prepared for press the first two books, and the opening section of the 
third — about a half of the whole. This portion of the romance was printed 
in 1590, and ended abruptly in the middle of a sentence. Subsequently 
there was discovered a very rough draft of portions of a long continuation, 
forming the conclusion of the third book, with the succeeding fourth and 
fifth books. This supplement survived in 'several loose sheets (being never 
after reviewed or so much as seen altogether by himself) without any certain 
disposition or perfect order.' With a second edition of the authentic text 
these unrevised sheets were printed in 1593. Sidney's sister, the Countess 
of Pembroke, supplied the recovered books with ' the best coherences that 
could be gathered out of those scattered papers,' but no attempt was made 
to fill an obvious hiatus in the middle of the third book at the point where 
the original edition ended and the rough draft opened. Nor did the editor 
or publisher venture to bring the unfinished romance to any conclusion. 
What close was designed for the story by the author was ' only known to his 
own spirit.' The editors of later editions, bolder than their predecessors, 
sought to remedy such defects. The gap in the third book was in 1621 filled 
by a ' little essay ' from the pen of a well-known Scottish poet, Sir William 



102 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

The Arcadia is a prose tale and Milton only applied to it 
the title of poem figuratively. But one important characteris- 
tic of the Arcadia is its frequent introduction of 
The verse. 

interludes of verse which, although they appeal 

more directly to the historian of literature than to its aesthetic 
critic, must be closely examined by students of Sidney's 
work. Shepherds come upon the stage and sing songs for 
the delectation of the Arcadian King, and actors in the story 
at times express their emotions lyrically. Occasionally 
Sidney's verse in the Arcadia seeks to adapt to the English 
language classical metres, after the rules that the club of 
' Areopagus ' sought to impose on his pen. The sapphics and 
hexameters of the Arcadia are no less strained and grotesque 
than are earlier efforts in the like direction. They afford 
convincing proof of the hopeless pedantry of the lAterary 
principles to which Sidney for a time did homage, but which 
he afterwards recanted. Sidney's metrical dexterity is seen 
to advantage, however, in his endeavours to acclimatise con- 
temporary forms of foreign verse. In his imitation of the 
sestina and terza rima of contemporary Italy he shows felicity 
and freedom of expression. He escapes from that servile 
adherence to rules of prosody which is ruinous to poetic 
invention. Sidney's affinity with the spirit of Italian poetry 
is seen to be greater than his affinity with the spirit of 
classical poetry. 

No quite unqualified commendation can be bestowed on the 

Alexander, Earl of Stirling. Finally, in 1628 a more adventurous spirit, 
Richard Beling, or Bellings, a young barrister of Lincoln's Inn, endeavoured 
to terminate the story in a wholly original sixth book. It is with these addi- 
tions that subsequent re-issues of the Arcadia were invariably embellished. 
Other efforts were made to supplement Sidney's unfinished romance. One 
by Gervase Markham, an industrious literary hack, came out as early as 1607. 
Another, by 'a young gentlewoman,' Mrs. A. Weames, was published in 
1651. The neglect of these fragmentary contributions by publishers of the 
full work, calls for no regret. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 103 

prose style of his romance. It lacks the directness which 
distinguishes the Apologie for Poetrie. It fails to give much 
support to Drayton's contention that Sidney rid The prose 
the English tongue of conceits and affectations. styIe - 
Sidney rid the English tongue of conceits and affectations. 
His metaphors are often far-fetched, and he overloads his 
page with weak and conventional epithets. The vice of dif- 
fuseness infects both matter and manner. But delightful oases 
of perspicuous narrative and description of persons and places 
are to be found, although the search may involve some labour. 
The unchecked luxuriance of Sidney's pen, and absence 
of well- wrought plan did injustice to the genuine insight 
into life and the descriptive power which belonged Wantof 
to him. Signs, however, are discernible amid all coherence - 
the tangle that, with the exercise of due restraint, he might 
have attained mastery of fiction alike in style and subject- 
matter. 



It was difficult for Sidney, whatever the attractions that 
the life of contemplation and literary labour had to offer 

him, complacently to surrender Court favour, and 

Reconcili- 
with it political office, altogether. He knew the ation with 

the Queen, 
meaning of money difficulties; tailors and boot- 
makers often pressed him for payment. They were not 
easy to appease. The notion of seeking a livelihood from his 
pen was foreign to all his conceptions of life. From the 
Queen and her Ministers he could alone hope for remunera- 
tive employment. He therefore deemed it prudent to seek 
a reconciliation. Quarrels with Queen Elizabeth were rarely 
incurable. A solemn undertaking to abstain from further 
political argument which involved the Queen, opened to 
Sidney an easy road to peace. 



104 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

His uncle Leicester interested himself anew in his fortunes, 
and transferred to him a small administrative office which he 
Official himself had held, that of Steward to the Bishop 

promotion. of Winchester. He succeeded his father, too, as 
Member of Parliament for Kent. In Parliament he joined 
with eagerness in the deliberations of a Committee which 
recommended strenuous measures against Catholics and 
slanderers of the Queen. But in the House of Commons he 
made little mark. The slow methods of the assembly's proce- 
dure, and its absorption in details which lacked large 
significance, oppressed Sidney's spirit. He was ill-adapted 
to an arena where success came more readily to tact- 
ful reticence and apathy than to exuberant eloquence and 
enthusiasm. 

In 1583 he was knighted, and assumed his world-famous 
designation of Sir Philip Sidney. But it is one of history's 
Knight- little ironies that it was not for any personal 

hood. merit that he received the title of honour. Eng- 

lish people like titles, although it be the exception, and not 
the rule, for them to reward notable personal merit. In Sir 
Philip's case it happened that a friend whom he had met 
abroad, Prince John Casimir, brother of the Elector Palatine, 
had been nominated by Queen Elizabeth to the dignity of a 
Knight of the Garter. Unable to attend the investiture him- 
self the prince had requested his friend Sidney to act as his 
proxy. Such a position could only be filled by one who was 
himself of the standing of a knight-bachelor, the lowest of 
all the orders of knighthood. Consequently in compliment 
to the foreign prince, the Queen conferred knighthood on the 
prince's representative. It was a happy accident by which 
Sidney was enrolled ^r^ongj English knights. It was not 
designed as a recognition of his worth; it conferred no 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 105 

special honour on him; but it renewed the dignity of an 
ancient order of chivalry, and it lends a picturesque colour 
to the closing scene of his career. 

For a year Sidney's course of life ran somewhat more 
smoothly. Once again he sought scope for political ambi- 
tions. He obtained more remunerative official em- j int- 
ployment. He was offered a post in the military th ^f er ° 
administration of the country. He was appointed ° rdnance - 
Joint-Master of the Ordnance with another uncle, the Earl 
of Warwick, Leicester's elder brother. 

The need of a regular income was the more pressing be- 
cause Sidney was about to enter the married state. His old 

friend, the Queen's Secretary, Sir Francis Wal- 

Marriage. 
singham who, when English ambassador, was his 

host at Paris in the year of the St. Bartholomew's Massacre, 
chose him for his son-in-law, for the husband of his daughter 
Frances, a girl of only fourteen. Sidney was twenty-nine 
years old, more than twice her age, and there seems good rea- 
son to regard the union as a marriage de convenance. The 
astute Secretary of State, who had always cherished an affec- 
tionate interest in Sidney, thought that the young man might 
yet fill with credit high political office, and his kinship with 
Leicester gave him hope of a rich inheritance. The arrange- 
ment was not, however, concluded without difficulty. Sidney's 
father declared that ' his present biting necessity ' rendered 
monetary aid from him out of the question. Leicester was 
not immediately helpful, and other obstacles to the early 
solemnisation of the nuptial ceremony presented themselves. 
The Queen was never ready to assent quickly to her courtiers' 
marriages. For two months she withheld her assent. Then 
she suddenly yielded, and showed no trace of resentment. 
The marriage took place in the autumn of 1583. It was the 



106 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

first scene of the last act in Sidney's life. He had barely 

three years to live. 

Sidney took up his residence with his wife's parents near 

London, at Barn Elms. His course of life underwent little 

other change. His literary relations with his old 
Relations 
with Lady friend Penelope Devereux, who two years before 

had become the wife of Lord Rich, were not in- 
terrupted. He continued to write sonnets to her, and their 
loyal friendship remained the admiration of fashionable 
society. None the less Sidney stirred in his girl-wife a 
genuine affection, and nothing in his association with Lady 
Rich seems to have prejudiced her happiness. 

Sidney's married life, after its first transports were over, 
increased rather than diminished his dissatisfaction with his 
prospects at home. A complete change of scene and of 
effort crossed his mind. He thought of trying his fortune 
in a new field of energy. The passion for exploration, for 

founding English colonies in the newly discovered 
The call of & & J 

the New Continent of America, which had mastered the 

World. • -. n ! 

minds 01 so many contemporaries, suddenly ab- 
sorbed him. His active intellect was drawn within the whirl- 
pool of that new enthusiasm. At first he merely took a few 
shares in an expedition in search of the North- West Passage, 
but his hopes ran high as he scanned the details of the 
project. He believed that gold, and all that gold might 
bring, was to be found in abundance in the hazy continent 
of the north. But to take a vicarious part in adventure ill 
sorted with his nature. He resolved to join in person Sir 
Humphrey Gilbert, who was about to set forth on that 
eventful expedition to Newfoundland from which he never 
returned. Sidney was finally induced to stay behind. He 
was thus preserved from the fate of Gilbert who was 
wrecked on the voyage home. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 107 

But Sidney's imagination dwelt on the possibilities which 
control of a new and untrodden world implied. Designs of 
dazzling scope vaguely shaped themselves in his Q ran t to 
brain: he would gain control of the greater part American 
of the new continent and make of it a purified lands - 
Arcadia such as fiction could hardly comprehend. Accord- 
ingly, he sought and obtained letters patent to hold for him- 
self and colonise at will the unknown world. No less than 
three million acres of undiscovered land in America were 
soon set at his disposal. The document announcing the grant 
is well fitted to be enrolled in the courts of Faerie. Sir Philip 
was ' licensed and authorised to discover, search, find out, 
view, and inhabit certain parts of America not yet discovered, 
and out of those countries, by him, his heirs, factors, or 
assigns to have and enjoy, to him his heirs and assigns for 
ever, such and so much quantity of ground as should amount 
to the number of thirty hundred thousand acres of ground 
and wood, with all commodities, jurisdiction, and royalties, 
both by sea and land, with full power and authority that it 
should and might be lawful for the said Sir Philip Sidney, 
his heirs and assigns, at all times thereafter to have, take, and 
lead in the said voyage, to travel thitherwards or to inhabit 
there with him or them, and every or any of them, such and 
so many of her Majesty's subjects as should willingly accom- 
pany him or them, or any or every of them, with sufficient 
shipping and munition for their transportations.' 

History seemed obeying the laws that govern fiction. Sid- 
ney was building, on a basis of legal technicalities, a castle 
in the air. The scheme suffered the fate of all speculations 
in unverified conditions. Little followed the generous grant. 
But Sidney steadily fixed his eyes for the time on the Atlantic 
horizon. He was greatly moved by Sir Walter Ralegh's plans 
for the exploration of the land that Ralegh named ' Virginia.' 



108 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

Sidney sat on a committee of the House of Commons which 
was appointed to adjust the shadowy boundaries of the first 
projected settlement of Englishmen in that country. The 
committee's deliberations had no practical effect. Sidney was 
destined to come to no closer quarters with the fanciful 
property, of which the law, working for once in strange 
agreement with the vagaries of the imagination, had made 
him master. 

XI 

The short remainder of Sidney's life was passed in new 
surroundings. It was on the field of battle that he closed 
The last n * s D " e f pilgrimage on earth. Hostility to Cath- 

scene. Q jj c gp a j n h a( j combined with his imaginative 

energy greatly to stimulate his interest in the American 
schemes. Advancing life and closer study of current politics 
Hostility strengthened the conviction that Spain, unless 
to Spam. jj er career were checked, was England's fated 
conqueror in every sphere. The cause alike of Protestantism, 
of enlightenment, and of trade was menaced by Spanish pre- 
dominance. A general attack on the Empire of Spain was 
essential to England's security. With characteristic impetu- 
osity he turned from his American speculations and surveyed 
the Spanish peril. He was tiring of the contemplative life. 
He was bent on trying his fortune in an enterprise of action. 
An opportunity for active conflict with Spain seemed to be 
forced on England's conscience which could hardly suffer 
neglect. Spain was making a determined effort to drive 
Protestantism from the stronghold that it had acquired in the 
Low Countries. Sidney's old admirer, William of Orange, 
had, in 1584, been murdered there at Spanish instigation, a 
martyr to the cause of Protestant freedom. It was England's 
duty, Sidney now argued, vigorously to avenge that outrage. 
The more direct the onslaught on Spain the better. Spain 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 109 

should be attacked in all her citadels; the Low Countries 
should be over-run; raids should be made on Spanish ports; 
her rich trade with South America should be persistently 
intercepted and ultimately crushed. 

Such a design, as soon as his mind had formulated it, 
absorbed all Sidney's being. But it met with faint encour- 
agement in the quarter whence authority to carry it into 
execution could alone come. The Queen was averse to a 

direct challenge of Spain. She was not fond of 

& r Theatti- 

spending money. She deprecated the cost of open tude of 

war. But Sidney and his friends were resolute. 

They would not let the question sleep. The nation ranged 

itself on their side. At length, yielding to popular clamour, 

the Queen agreed, under conditions which indemnified her for 

loss of money, to send strictly limited help to the Protestant 

States of the Low Country. She would assist them in a 

qualified way to repel the assault of Spain. She would lend 

them money and would send an army, the cost of which they 

were to defray. With a policy so meagre in conception and 

so poor in spirit Sidney had small sympathy. But it was all 

that it was possible to hope for, and with it he had to rest 

content. At any rate, wherever and however the blow was 

to be struck against Spain, he was resolved to lend a hand. 

That resolve cost him his life. 

The command of the English force for the Low Countries 

was bestowed on Sidney's uncle Leicester; and the Queen 

reluctantly yielded to persuasion and conferred Governor 

on Sidney a subordinate post in the expedition. of Flusnin e- 

He was appointed Governor of Flushing, one of the cities 

which the Queen occupied by way of security for the expense 

which she was incurring. In the middle of November, 1585, 

Sidney left Gravesend to take up his command. It was to 

be his first and last experience of battle. 



110 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

The campaign was from the outset a doubtful success. 

The Queen refused to provide adequate supplies. Leicester 

proved an indolent commander. Harmonious co- 
Difficulties 
of the operation with their Dutch allies was not easy for 

the English. Sidney soon perceived how desper- 
ate the situation was. He wrote hastily to his father-in-law 
Walsingham, who shared in a guarded way his political 
enthusiasm, urging him to impress the Queen with the 
need of a larger equipment. He had not the tact to improve 
the situation by any counsel or action of his own on the spot. 
He persuaded his uncle to make him Colonel of a native 
Dutch regiment of horse, an appointment which deeply 
offended a rival Dutch candidate. The Queen, to Sidney's 
chagrin, judged the rival's grievance to be just. Sidney 
showed infinite daring when opportunity offered, but good 
judgment was wanting. There was wisdom in his uncle's 
warning against his facing risks in active service. Direction 
was given him to keep to his post in Flushing. 

At length Leicester, yielding to the entreaties of his col- 
leagues and his nephew, decided to abandon Fabian tactics 
The attack an ^ ^° come to close quarters with the enemy, 
on Zutphen -pj^ g rea t fortress of Zutphen, which was in Span- 
ish hands, was to be attacked. As soon as the news reached 
Sidney, he joined Leicester's army of assault as a knight- 
errant; his own regiment was far away at Dev enter. He pre- 
sented himself in Leicester's camp upon his own initiative. 

On the 21st September, 1586, the English army learned 
that a troop of Spaniards, convoying provisions to Zutphen, 
The fatal was ^° reacn the town at daybreak next morning. 
wound. Five hundred horsemen of the English army were 

ordered to intercept the approaching force. Without waiting 
for orders, Sidney determined to join in the encounter. He 
left his tent very early in the morning of the 22nd, and 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 111 

meeting a friend who had omitted to put on leg-armour, he 
rashly disdained the advantage of better equipment, and 
quixotically lightened his own protective garb. Fog hung 
about the country. The little English force soon found 
itself by mistake under the walls of the town, and threatened 
alike in front and at the rear. A force of three thousand 
Spanish horsemen almost encircled them. They were between 
two fires — between the Spanish army within the town and the 
Spanish army which was seeking to enter it. The English- 
men twice charged the reinforcements approaching Zutphen, 
but were forced to retreat under the town walls. At the 
second charge Sidney's horse was killed under him. Re- 
mounting another, he foolhardily thrust his way through the 
enemy's ranks. Then, perceiving his isolation, he turned back 
to rejoin his friends, and was struck as he retreated by a 
bullet on the left thigh a little above the knee. He managed 
to keep his saddle until he reached the camp, a mile and a 
half distant. What followed is one of the classical anecdotes 
of history, and was thus put on record by Sidney's friend 
Greville : — ' Being thirsty with excess of bleeding, he called 
for drink, which was presently brought him; but as he was 
putting the bottle to his mouth, he saw a poor soldier carried 
along, who had eaten his last at the same feast, ghastly 
casting up his eyes at the bottle, which Sir Philip perceiving, 
took it from his head before he drank, and delivered it to 
the poor man, with these words, " Thy necessity is greater 
than mine." And when he had pledged this poor soldier he 
was presently carried (by barge) to Arnheim.' 

Sidney's wife hurried from England to his bedside at 
Arnheim, and after twenty-six days' suffering he died. In 
his last hours he asked that the Arcadia, which g^ney's 
had hitherto only circulated in manuscript, might death - 
be burnt, but found in literary study and composition solace 



112 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

in his final sufferings. The States General — the Dutch Gov- 
ernment — begged the honour of according the hero burial 
within their own dominions, but the request was refused, and 
some months later he was buried in great state in that old St. 
Paul's Cathedral — the church of the nation — which was burnt 
down in the great fire of 1666. 

Rarely has a man been more sympathetically mourned. 
Months afterwards Londoners refused to wear gay apparel. 
National T^e Q ueen > though she shrewdly complained that 
mourning. Sidney invited death by his rashness, was over- 
whelmed with grief. Students of both Oxford and Cam- 
bridge Universities published ample collections of elegies in 
honour of one who served with equal zeal Mars and Apollo. 
Fully two hundred poems were written in his memory at the 
time. Of these by far the finest is Spenser's pathetic lament 
' Astrophel, a Pastoral Elegy,' where the personal fascination 
of his character receives especially touching recognition: — 

'He grew up fast in goodness and in grace, 
And doubly fair wox both in mind and face, 
Which daily more and more he did augment, 
With gentle usage and demeanour mild: 
That all men's hearts with secret ravishment 
He stole away, and weetingly beguiled. 
Ne spite itself, that all good things doth spill, 
Found aught in him, that she could say was ill.' 

'Astrophel,' i. 17. 

XII 

Sidney's career was, to employ his own words, ' meetly 
furnished of beautiful parts.' It displayed ' many things 
Sidney's tasting of a noble birth and worthy of a noble 
career. mind.' Yet his achievements, whether in life or 
literature, barely justify the passionate eulogy which they 
won from contemporaries. In none of his endeavours did he 
win a supreme triumph. His friend, Gabriel Harvey, after 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 113 

eulogising his ripe judgment in many callings, somewhat 
conventionally declared that ' his sovereign profession was 
arms.' There is small ground for the statement. Sidney's 
fame owes more to the fascination of his chivalric personality 
and quick intelligence, and to the pathos of his early death, 
than to his greatness in any profession, whether in war or 
politics or poetry. 

In practical life his purpose was transparently honest. 
He showed a boy-like impatience of the temporising habit of 
contemporary statesmanship, but there was a lack of balance 
in his constitution which gave small assurance of ability to 
control men or to mould the course of events. The catas- 
trophe at Zutphen tempts one to exclaim: 

"Twas not a life, 
'Twas but a piece of childhood thrown away.' 

To literature he exhibited an eager and an ardent devo- 
tion. The true spirit of poetry touched his being, but he 

rarelv abandoned himself to its finest frenzies. 

J His 

It was on experiments in forms of literary art, literary 

work, 
which foreign masters had taught him, that he 

expended most of his energy. Only in detached lyrics, which 

may be attributed to his latest years, did he free himself 

from the restraints of study and authority. Only once and 

again as in his great dirge beginning: 

' Ring out your bells ! Let mourning shows be spread, 
For love is dead,' 

did he wing his flight fearlessly in the purest air of the 
poetic firmament. Elsewhere his learning tends to obscure 
his innate faculty. Despite his poetic enthusiasm and pas- 
sionate idealism, there is scarcely a sonnet in the famous 
sequence inscribed by Astrophel to Stella which does not 
illustrate an ' alacrity in sinking.' 

H 



114 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

But no demerits were recognised in Sidney by his contem- 
poraries. He was, in the obsolete terminology of his admir- 
ing friend, Gabriel Harvey, ' the secretary of eloquence, 
the breath of the Muses, the honey bee of the daintiest flowers 
of wit and art, the pith of moral and intellectual virtues, the 
arm of Bellona in the field, the tongue of Suada in the 
chamber, the spirit of practice in esse, and the paragon of 
excellency in print.' * His literary work, no less than his 
life, magnetised the age. His example fired scores of Eliza- 
bethans to pen long sequences of sonnets in that idealistic 
tone of his, which itself reflected the temper of 

Influence . 

of the Petrarch and Ronsard. His massive romance ot 

Arcadia appealed to contemporary taste despite 
its confusions, and was quickly parent of a long line of 
efforts in fiction which exaggerated its defects. Elizabethan 
dramatists attempted to adapt episodes of Sidney's fiction 
to the stage. Shakespeare himself based on Sidney's tale of 
' an unkind king ' the incident of Gloucester and his sons 
in King Lear. It was not only at home that his writings won 
the honour of imitation. The fame of the Arcadia spread to 
foreign countries. Seventeenth-century France welcomed it 
in translations as warmly as the original was welcomed in 
England. 

It was indeed by very slow degrees that the Arcadia was 
dethroned either at home or abroad. In the eighteenth 
century it had its votaries still. Richardson borrowed the 
name of Pamela from one of Sidney's princesses. Cowper 
hailed with delight ' those Arcadian scenes ' sung by ' a 
warbler of poetic prose.' But the revolt against the pre- 
dominance of Sidney's romance could not then be long 
delayed. English fiction of ordered insight was coming into 
being. The Arcadia, which defied so much of the reality of 

1 Pierces Supererogation, etc. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 115 

life could not breathe the true atmosphere, and it was rela- 
gated to obscurity. Historically it remains a monument of 
deep interest to literary students, but its chief attraction is 
now that of a curious effigy; the breath of life has fled 
from it. 

Yet, despite the ephemeral character of the major part of 
Sidney's labours, the final impression that his brief career 
left on the imagination of his countrymen was T h e fi na i 
lasting. He still lives in the national memory as oT'^nfe" 1 
the Marcellus— the earliest Marcellus of English and work, 
literature. After two centuries the poet Shelley gave voice to 
a faith, almost universal among Englishmen, that his varied 
deeds, his gentle nature, and his early death had robed him in 
' dazzUng immortality.' In Shelley's ethereal fancy — 

' Sidney, as he fought 
And as he fell, and as he lived and loved, 
Sublimely mild, a spirit without spot,' 

was among the first of the inheritors of unfulfilled renown to 
welcome to their thrones in the empyrean the youngest of 
the princes of poetry, John Keats. 



IV 

SIR WALTER RALEGH 

' O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown ! 
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword, 
The expectancy and rose of the fair state .... 
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down ! ' 

Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act m., Sc. i., 159-162. 

[Bibliography. — By far the best biography of Ralegh is Sir 
Walter Kalegh; a biography by Mr. William Stebbing, Oxford 
1891. His letters may be studied in the second of the two 
volumes of the ' Life,' by Edward Edwards, 1868. The chief 
collection of his works in prose and verse was published at 
Oxford in eight volumes in 1829. The best edition of his 
poetry is 'The Poems of Sir Walter Ralegh and other courtly 
poets, collected and authenticated, by John Hannah, D.C.L. 
(Aldine Edition), London, 1885.' The most characteristic of 
his shorter prose writings, his Discovery of Guiana, is pub- 
lished in Cassells' National Library (No. 67).] 



The primary cause of colonial expansion lies in the natural 
ambition of the healthy human intellect to extend its range 
Primarv °f vision and knowledge. Curiosity, the inquisi- 
causeof j.j ve <jesire to come to close quarters with what 

expansion. j s ou j. f sight, primarily accounts for the passion 
for travel and for exploration whence colonial movements 
spring. Intellectual activity is the primary cause of the 
colonising instinct. 

But the colonising, the exploring spirit, when once it has 

come into being, is invariably stimulated and kept 
Three 

secondary alive by at least three secondary causes, which are 
causes. 

sometimes mistaken for the primary. In them 

good and bad are much tangled. ' The web of our life,' 
116 




Sir Walter Ralegh 

AT THE AGE OF 34 

From the portrait attributed to Federigo Zuccaro in the National Portrait Gallery. 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 117 

says Shakespeare, 'is of a mingled yarn, good and ill to- 
gether.' Of a very mingled yarn is the web of which colonial 
effort is woven. 

The intellectual desire to know more about the world than 
is possible to one who is content to pass his life in his native 
district or land is commonly stimulated, in the Greed of 
first place, by the hope of improving one's mate- gain ' 
rial condition, by the expectation of making more money than 
were likely otherwise. Evil lurks in this expectation; it easily 
degenerates into greed of gain, into the passion for gold. 

The desire for foreign exploration, too, is invigorated by 
impatience of that restraint which law or custom imposes on 
an old country, by the hope of greater liberty p ass j ori f or 
and personal independence. This hope may tempt ^berty. 
to moral ruin; it may issue in the practice of licentious law- 
lessness. 

Then there emerges a third motive — the love of mastery, 
the love of exercising authority over peoples of inferior civ- 
ilisation or physical development. The love of mastery is 
capable alike of benefiting and of injuring hu- L oveo f 
manity. If it be exercised prudently, it may master y- 
serve to bring races, which would otherwise be excluded, 
within the pale of a higher civilisation; but if it be exercised 
imprudently, it sinks to tyranny and cruelty. 

The passion for mastery, the passion for gold, and the 
passion for freedom, have all stimulated colonising energy 
with mingled results. When the three passions are restrained 
by the moral sense, colonising energy works for the world's 
advantage; the good preponderates. Wherever the moral 
sense proves too weak to control the three perilous passions, 
colonising energy connotes much moral and physical evil. 



118 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



ii 

Great colonising effort, which has its primary source in 
intellectual curiosity, is an invariable characteristic of eras 
like the era of the Renaissance, when man's intellect is 

working, whether for good or ill, with exceptional 
Great 

colonising energy. The Greeks and Romans were great col- 
onisers at the most enlightened epochs of their 
history. In modern Europe voyages of discovery were made 
by sailors of the Italian Republics, of the Spanish peninsula, 
and of France, when the spirit of the Renaissance was 
winging amongst them its highest flight. 

At first the maritime explorers of Southern Europe con- 
fined their efforts to the coast of Africa, especially to the 
The west coast. Then they passed to the East — to 

Hem£ rn India, at first by way of the Red Sea, and after- 

sphere, wards round the Cape of Good Hope, and through 

the Indian Ocean. Nothing yet was known of the Western 
Hemisphere. It was a sanguine hope of reaching India by 
a new and direct route through western seas that led to the 
great discovery of the Continent of America. 

Columbus, its discoverer, was a native of the Italian Re- 
public of Genoa, a city distinguished by the feverish energy 
with which its inhabitants welcomed new ideas that were 
likely to increase men's material prosperity. It was in 
August 1492 — when sailing under the patronage of the 

greatest sovereigns that filled the throne of Spain, 
Columbus's 

discovery, Ferdinand and Isabella, on what he believed 
1492. 

would prove a new route to the Indies — that Co- 
lumbus struck land in what he called, and in what we still 
call, the West Indies. He made two voyages to the West 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 119 

Indies before he passed further west and touched the main- 
land, which turned out to be South America. 

England, under the intellectual stimulus of the Renais- 
sance, was not behind Spain in the exploration of the West- 
ern Seas. Colonial expansion loomed on Eng- England 
land's horizon when the English Renaissance was jj^. 
coming to birth at the end of the fifteenth cen- World - 
tury. Like Spain, England owed its first glimpse of the 
New World to the courage of an Italian sailor. 

At the time that Columbus sighted South America, John 
Cabot, also a native of energetic Genoa, had been long settled 
at Bristol in England, and was now a pilot of that port. No 
sooner had Columbus sighted South America than Cabot 
sighted North America. Columbus and Cabot flourished at 
the end of the fifteenth century — in Sir Thomas More's youth. 
The work which they inaugurated was steadily carried for- 
ward throughout the sixteenth century, and its progress was 
watched with a restless ecstasy. 

The division of labour in exploring the new continent, 

which was faintly indicated by the two directions which 

Cabot and Columbus took respectively to North 

r J North and 

and South, was broadly adopted in the century South 

that followed by sailors starting respectively from 
English and Spanish ports. Spaniards continued to push 
forward their explorations in South America, or in the 
extreme south of the northern continent. Englishmen by no 
means left South America undisturbed, but they won their 
greatest victories for the future in the northern division of the 
new continent. Spain and England were throughout the six- 
teenth century strenuous rivals as colonisers of the Western 
Hemisphere. In the end, South America became for the 
most part a Spanish settlement; North America became for 
the most part an English settlement. 



120 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

The knowledge that a New World was opening to the Old, 

proved from the first a sharper spur to the imagination in 

England than in any country of Europe. It contributed 

there, more notably than elsewhere, to the formation among 

enlightened men of a new ideal of life; it gave birth to the 

notion that humanity had it in its power to begin 
America 

and new at will existence afresh, could free itself in due 

ideals. 

season from the imperfections of the Old World. 
Within very few years of the discovery of America, Sir 
Thomas More described, as we have seen, that ideal state 
which he located in the new hemisphere, that ideal state upon 
which he bestowed the new name of ' Utopia.' Sir Thomas 
More's romance of Utopia is not merely a literary master- 
piece; it is also a convincing testimony to the stirring effects 
on English genius of the discovery of an unknown, an 
untrodden world. 

But the discovery of America brought of necessity in its 
train to England, no less than to other countries, the less 
elevated sentiments which always dog the advances of explo- 
ration. The spirit of English exploration was not for long 

uncoloured by greed of gain. Licence and oppres- 

istic sion darkened its development. But the vague im- 

influences. 

mensity of the opportunities opened by the sudden 

expansion of the earthly planet filled Englishmen with a 'wild 

surmise ' which, if it could not kill, could check the growth 

of active evil. England's colonial aspirations of the sixteenth 

century never wholly lost their first savour of idealism. 

In Elizabethan England a touch of philosophy tinged the 

spirit of adventure through all ranks of the nation. Men 

were ambitious, Shakespeare tells us, to see the 
The spirit r 

of wonders of the world abroad in order to enlarge 

adventure. 

their mental horizons. They lavished their for- 
tunes and their energies in discovering islands far away, in 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 121 

the interests of truth. The intellectual stir which moved his 
being impelled Sir Philip Sidney, the finest type of the 
many-sided culture of the day, to organise colonial explora- 
tion, although he died too young to engage in it actively. 
The unrest which drove men to cross the ocean and seek 
settlement in territory that no European foot had trodden 
was identified with resplendent virtue. Such was the burden 
of Drayton's ode ' To the Virginian Voyage ' : — 

'You brave heroic minds, 
Worthy your country's name, 
That honour still pursue, 
Whilst loitering hinds 
Lurk here at home with shame, 
Go, and subdue. 

Britons, you stay too long; 
Quickly aboard bestow you, 
And with a merry gale 
Swell your stretched sail, 
With vows as strong 
As the winds that blow you.' 

Englishmen of mettle were expected to seek at all hazards 
earth's paradise in America. Not only was the New World 
credited with unprecedented fertility, but the laws of nature 
were believed to keep alive there a golden age in perpetuity. 

These fine aspirations were never wholly extinguished, 

although there lurked behind them the hope that an age of 

gold in a more material and literal sense than 

Imaginary 
philosophers conceived it might ultimately reward age of 

the adventurers. The Elizabethans were worldly- 
minded enough to judge idealism alone an unsafe foundation 
on which to rear a colonial empire. ' For I am not so simple,' 
said an early advocate of colonial enterprise who fully 
recognised in idealism a practical safeguard against its 



122 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

degradation, ' I am not so simple to think that any other 
motive than wealth will ever erect in the New World a 
commonwealth, or draw a company from their ease and 
humour at home to settle [in colonial plantations].' 

The popular play called Eastward Ho! published early in 
the seventeenth century, revived at the close of the epoch 
of the English Renaissance all the prevailing incitements 
to colonial expansion. The language is curiously reminiscent 
of a passage in Sir Thomas More's Utopia, and illustrates 
the permanence of the hold that idealism in the sphere of 
colonial experiment maintained in the face of all challenges 
over the mind of sixteenth-century Englishmen. 

In the play an ironical estimate was given of the wealth 
that was expected to lie at the disposal of all-comers to the 
New World. Infinite treasure was stated to lie at the feet 
of any one who cared to come and pick it up. Gold was 
alleged by the dramatist to be more plentiful in America 
than copper in Europe; the natives used household utensils 
of pure gold; the chains which hung on the posts in the 
streets were of massive gold; prisoners were fettered in gold; 
and ' for rubies and diamonds,' declares the satiric play- 
wright, ' the Americans go forth on holidays and gather them 
by the seashore, to hang on their children's coats, and stick 
in their caps, as commonly as our children in England wear 
saffron gilt brooches and groats with holes in them.' 

At the same time the dramatist recognised that the passion 
for moral perfection remained an efficient factor in colonis- 
Moral * n S enterprise. He claimed for the new country 

ideals. j/j^j. p U bij c morality had reached there a pitch 

never known in England. No office was procurable except 
through merit; corruption in high places was unheard of. 
The New World offered infinite scope for the realisation of 
perfection in human affairs. 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 123 



The mingled motive of sixteenth-century colonial enter- 
prise is best capable of realisation in the career of a typical 
Elizabethan — Sir Walter Ralegh. The character R a i eg h a 
and achievements of Ralegh, alike in their defects E"l?zabethan 
and merits, sound more forcibly than those of any versatility. 
other the whole gamut of Renaissance feeling and aspiration 
in Elizabethan England. His versatile exploits in action 
and in contemplation — in life and literature — are a micro- 
cosm of the virtues and the vices which the Renaissance bred 
in the Elizabethan mind and heart. 

Ralegh as a boy was an enthusiast for the sea. He was a 
native of Devonshire, whence many sailors have come. Sir 
Francis Drake, the greatest of Elizabethan mari- sir Francis 
time explorers, was also a Devonshire man. It Drake - 
was he who first reached the Isthmus of Panama, and, first 
of Englishmen to look on the Pacific Sea beyond, besought 
Almighty God of His kindness to give him life and leave to 
sail an English ship once in that sea. That hope he realised 
six years later when he crossed the Pacific, touched at Java, 
and came home by way of the Cape of Good Hope. Drake's 
circumnavigation of the globe was the mightiest exploit of 
any English explorer of the Elizabethan era. 

Only second to Drake as a maritime explorer was Sir 
Humphrey Gilbert, also a Devonshire man, who in 1583 in 
the name of Queen Elizabeth took possession of 
Newfoundland, the oldest British colony. This half- g 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert was Ralegh's elder half- |[ r other ' 
brother, for they were sons of the same mother, Qji^[ irey 
who married twice. Her first husband, Sir Hum- 
phrey's father, was Otho Gilbert, who lived near Dartmouth. 
Her second husband, who was Ralegh's father, was a country 



124 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

gentleman living near Budleigh Salterton, where Ralegh was 
born about 1552, some two years before Sir Philip Sidney. 

Gilbert was Ralegh's senior by thirteen years, and like him 
Ralegh obtained his first knowledge of the sea on the beach 
of his native place. The broad Devonshire accent, 
and in which he always spoke, he probably learnt from 

Devonshire sailors. His intellect was from youth 
exceptionally alert. Vigorous as was always his love of 
outdoor life, it never absorbed him. With it there went a 
passion for books, an admirable combination, the worth of 
which was never better illustrated than in the life and letters 
of the Renaissance. 

After spending a little time at Oxford, and also studying 
law in London — study that did not serve him in life very 
profitably — Ralegh followed the fashion among young Eliza- 
bethans and went abroad to enjoy experience of military 
service. 

IV 

Englishmen were then of a more aggressive temper than 
they think themselves to be now. The new Protestant re- 
The rivalry Hgi° n > which rejected the ancient domination of 
with Spain, ^ e p a pacy, had created a militant spiritual energy 
in the country. That spiritual energy, combining with the 
new physical and intellectual activity bred of the general 
awakening of the Renaissance, made it almost a point of con- 
science for a young Elizabethan Protestant in vigorous health 
to measure swords with the rival Catholic power of Spain. 
As Sir Philip Sidney realised, Spain and England had 
divided interests at every point. Spain had been first in the 
field in the exploration of the New World, and was resolved 
to spend its energy in maintaining exclusive mastery of its 
new dominion. Spain was the foremost champion of the 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 125 

religious ideals of Rome. Pacific persuasion and argument 
were not among the proselytising weapons in her religious 
armoury. She was bent on crushing Protestantism by force 
of arms. She lent her aid to the French Government to 
destroy the Protestant movement in France which the Hugue- 
nots had organised there. She embarked on a Spain and 
long and costly struggle in her own territory of Holland - 
the Low Countries in Holland to suppress the Dutch cham- 
pions of the Reformed religion, whose zeal for active resist- 
ance was scarcely ever equalled by a Protestant people. 

Naturally Ralegh at an early age sought an opportunity 
of engaging in the fray. He found his earliest military 
experiences in fighting in the ranks of the Hugue- R a i eK hhi 
nots in France. Then he crossed the French ter- France - 
ritory on the North to offer his sword to the Dutch Protest- 
ants, who were struggling to free themselves from Spanish 
tyranny and Spanish superstition in the Low Countries. 

But it was in the New World that Spain was making the 
most imposing advance. Spanish pretensions in Europe could 
only be effectually checked if the tide of Spanish 

J J r His first 

colonisation of the New World were promptly conflict 

, „ i with Spain, 

stemmed. Ralegh was filled to overflowing with 

the national jealousy of Spain, and with contempt for what 
he deemed her religious obscurantism. His curiosity was 
stirred by rumours of the wonders across the seas, where 
Spain claimed sole dominion. Consequently his eager gaze 
was soon fixed on the New Continent. 

At twenty-six, after gaining experience of both peace and 
war in Europe, he joined his half-brother, Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert, in a first expedition at sea, on a voyage of discovery. 
He went as far as the West Indies. With the Spaniards 
who had already settled there inevitable blows were ex- 
changed. But Ralegh's first conflict with the arch enemy 



126 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

was a drawn battle. He was merely prospecting the ground, 

and the venture bore no immediate fruit. 

During a succeeding season he exhausted some of his 

superabundant energy in a conflict nearer home. In Ireland, 

England was engaged in her unending struggle 
In Ireland. . . . . « « i , i 

with the native population. On Ralegh s return 

from the West Indies he enlisted, with a view to filling an 
idle hour, in the Irish wars. The situation was not exhilar- 
ating, and his mind was too busy with larger projects to lead 
him to grapple with it seriously. Ireland appeared to him 
to be ' a lost land,' ' a common woe, rather than a common- 
wealth.' But its regeneration seemed no work for his own 
hand. He gained, however, a great material advantage from 
his casual intervention in the affairs of the country. There 
was granted to him a great tract of confiscated land in the 
South of Ireland, some forty thousand acres in what are 
now the counties Waterford and Cork. The princely estate 
stretched for many miles inland from the coast at Youghal 
along the picturesque banks on both sides of the river Black- 
water in Munster. 

The soil was for the most part wild land overgrown with 
long grass and brambles, but Ralegh acquired with the 
demesne a famous house and garden near Youghal which was 
known as Myrtle Grove, and he afterwards built a larger 
mansion at Lismore. There he spent much leisure later, and 
both houses are of high biographic interest. It was, however, 
not the puzzling problems of Irish politics which occupied 
Ralegh's attention, while he dwelt on Irish soil. He formed 
no opinions of his own on Irish questions. He accepted the 
conventional English view. For the native population he 
cherished the English planters' customary scorn. He did not 
hesitate to recommend their removal by means of ' practices,' 
which were indistinguishable from plots of assassination. 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 127 

But politics were not the interests which he cultivated in 
the distracted country. He devoted his energies there to the 
pacific pursuits of poetry and of gardening, and to social 
intercourse with congenial visitors. 



The passion for colonisation, for colonisation of territory 
further afield than Munster, was the dominant influence on 
Ralegh's mind. It was his half-brother Gilbert's discovery 
of Newfoundland, and the grant to Gilbert of permission to 
take, in the Queen's name, possession of an almost infinite 
area of unknown land on the North American Continent, 
that led to the episode which gave Ralegh his chief claim 
to renown in the history of the English Colonies. Gilbert's 
Gilbert's ship was wrecked; he was drowned on death > 1583 - 
returning from Newfoundland, and the Queen was there- 
upon induced to transfer to Ralegh most of the privileges 
she had granted to his half-brother. The opportunity was 
one of dazzling promise. Ralegh at once fitted out an 
expedition to undertake the exploration which Gilbert's death 
had interrupted. 

But Ralegh had meanwhile become a favourite of the 
Queen. 1 He had exerted on her all his charm of manner 
and of speech. He had practised to the full those arts 

1 The well-known story that Ralegh first won the Queen's favour by plac- 
ing his cloak over a muddy pool in her path is not traceable to any earlier 
writer than Fuller, who in his Worthies, first published in 1662, wrote: 
'Captain Ralegh coming out of Ireland to the English court in good habit 
(his clothes being then a considerable part of his estate) found the queen 
walking, till meeting with a plashy place, she seemed to scruple going 
thereon. Presently Ralegh cast and spread his new plush cloak on the 
ground; whereon the queen trod gently, rewarding him afterwards with 
many suits, for his so free and seasonable tender of so fair a foot cloth. 
Thus an advantageous admission into the first notice of a prince is more than 
half a degree to preferment.' This incident was carefully elaborated by Sir 
Walter Scott in his novel Kenilworth, chap. xv. 



128 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

familiar to all the courts of the Renaissance which gave a 
courtier's adulation of his prince the tone of amorous pas- 
sion. In the absence of ' his Love's Queen ' or 
Ralegh and 

Queen of ' the Goddess of his life ' Ralegh declared him- 

self, with every figurative extravagance, to live 
in purgatory or in hell; in her presence alone was he in 
paradise. Elizabeth rejoiced in the lover-like attentions that 
Ralegh paid her. She affected to take him at his word. His 
flatteries were interpreted more literally than he could have 
wished. She refused to permit her self-styled lover to leave 
her side. He was ordered to fix his residence at the court. 
Reluctantly Ralegh yielded to the command of his exacting 
mistress. The expedition that he fitted out to North America 
left without him. 

Ralegh's agents, after a six weeks' sail, landed on what 
is now North Carolina, probably on the island of Roanoke. 
The reports of the mariners were highly favour- 
able. A settlement, they declared, might readily 
be made. At length Englishmen might inhabit the New 
World. The notion presented itself to Ralegh's mind to 
invite the Queen's permission to bestow on this newly dis- 
covered territory, which was to be the corner-stone of a 
British colonial empire, a name that should commemorate his 
fealty to the virgin Queen, the name of ' Virginia.' It was 
a compliment that the Queen well appreciated at her favour- 
ite's hand. It gave her a lease of fame which the soil of 
England alone could not secure for her. For many years 
afterwards all the seaboard from Florida to Newfoundland 
was to bear that designation of Virginia. It was a designa- 
tion which linked the first clear promise of the colonisation 
by Englishmen of the North American Continent with the 
name of the greatest of English queens. 

Ralegh's project of planting a great English colony in 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 129 

North America had arisen in many other minds before it 
took root in his. He had heard, while fighting with the 
Huguenots in France, of their hopes of founding in North 
America a New France, where they should be free from 
the persecution of the Roman Catholic Government. He 
had studied the ambitious designs of Coligny, the leader of 
the French Huguenots, and the tragic failure which marked 
the first attempt of Frenchmen to colonise North America. 
It was probably this knowledge that fired Ralegh's ambition 
to make of Virginia a New England. In that hope he did 
not himself succeed, but his failure was due to no lack of 
zeal. Two years after he had received the report Qrenville's 
of his first expedition, he sent out his cousin, Sir ex P edltlon - 
Richard Grenville, with a band of colonists whom he intended 
to settle permanently in his country of Virginia. But 
difficulties arose which baffled his agent's powers. There were 
desperate quarrels between the settlers and natives. Food 
was scanty. The forces of nature conquered the settlers. 
Most of them were rescued from peril of death and carried 
home a year later by Sir Francis Drake. Ralegh was not 
daunted by such disasters. He refused to abandon his aim. 
Further batches of colonists were sent out by him in later 
years at his expense. The results of these expeditions did not, 
however, bring him appreciably nearer success. Mystery over- 
hangs the fate of some of these earliest English settlers in 
America, Ralegh's pioneers of the British empire. They 
were either slain or absorbed past recognition by the native 
peoples. In 1587, one band of Ralegh's emigrants, consisting 
of eighty-nine men, seventeen women, and two children, were 
left in Virginia, while their leaders came home for supplies, 
but when these emissaries arrived again in the new continent, 
the settlers had all disappeared. What became of them has 
never been known. 

I 



130 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

Ralegh was never in his life in Virginia. He was never 
near its coast line. His project, the fruit of idealism, was 
Ral h's not pursued with much regard for practical real- 
re ! a * lons isation. The difficulty of settling a new country 
Virginia. with Europeans he hardly appreciated. He is 
reckoned to have spent forty thousand pounds in money of 
his own day — about a quarter of a million pounds of our 
own currency — in his efforts to colonise Virginia. So long 
as he was a free man his enthusiasm for his scheme never 
waned, and he faced his pecuniary losses with cheerfulness. 
Despite his failures and disappointments, his costly and per- 
sistent efforts to colonise Virginia are the starting-point of 
the history of English colonisation. To him more than to 
any other man belongs the credit of indicating the road to 
the formation of a greater England beyond the seas. 

Two subsidiary results of those early expeditions to Vir- 
ginia which Ralegh organised, illustrate the minor modifica- 
tions of an old country's material economy that 
The potato J J 

and may spring from colonial enterprise. His sailors 

brought back two new products which were highly 

beneficial to Great Britain and Ireland, especially to Ireland. 

Englishmen and Irishmen owe to Ralegh's exertions their 

practical acquaintance with the potato and with tobacco. The 

potato he planted on his estates in Ireland, and it has proved 

of no mean service alike to that country and to England. 

Tobacco he learnt to smoke, and taught the art to others. 

Tobacco-smoking, which revolutionised the habits, at any 

rate, of the masculine portion of European society, is one 

of the striking results of the first experiments in 
Spread of ... - . 

tobacco colonial expansion. The magical rapidity with 

which the habit of smoking spread, especially in 
Elizabethan England, was a singular instance of the adapta- 
bility of Elizabethan society to new fashions. The prac- 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 131 

tice of tobacco-smoking became at a bound a well-nigh 
universal habit. Camden, the historian of the epoch, wrote 
a very few years after the return of Ralegh's agents from 
Virginia that since their home-coming ' that Indian plant 
called Tobacco, or Nicotina, is grown so frequent in use, and 
of such price, that many, nay, the most part, with an unsala- 
ble desire do take of it, drawing into their mouth the smoke 
thereof, which is of a strong scent, through a pipe made of 
earth, and venting of it again through their nose; some 
for wantonness, or rather fashion sake, or other for health 
sake. Insomuch that Tobacco shops are set up in greater 
number than either Alehouses or Taverns.' * 

VI 

In more imposing ways Ralegh's early endeavours bore 
fruit while he lived. Early in the seventeenth century 
Captain John Smith, a born traveller, considered captain 
somewhat more fully and more cautiously than g^-thin 
Ralegh the colonising problem, and reached a Vir s inia - 
workable solution. In 1606 Smith took out to Virginia 105 
emigrants, to the banks of the James river in Virginia. His 
colonists met, bike Ralegh's colonists, with perilous vicissi- 
tudes, but the experiment had permanent results. Before 
Ralegh's death he had the satisfaction of learning that 
another leader's colonising energy had triumphed over the 
obstacles that dismayed himself, and the seed that he had 
planted had fructified. 

Smith was a harder-headed man of the world than Ralegh. 
Idealism was not absent from his temperament, but it was 
of coarser texture, and was capable of answer- Colonial 
ing to a heavier strain. It was stoutly backed by of Ralegh's 
a rough practical sense. He took the work of dlscl P les - 
colonising to be a profession or handicraft worthy of any 
1 Camden, Annates, 1625, Bk. 3, p. 107. 



132 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

amount of energy. He preached the useful lesson that set- 
tlers in a new country must work laboriously with their hands. 
His views echo those of his farseeing contemporary, Bacon, 
who compressed into his Essay on Plantations the finest 
practical wisdom about colonisation that is likely to be met 
with. There must be no drones among colonists is the view 
of Bacon and Captain John Smith; the scum of the people 
should never be permitted to engage in colonial enterprise; 
there should not be too much moiling underground in search 
of mines; there should be no endeavour to win profit hastily 
and inconsiderately; the native races should be treated justly 
Bacon's anc ^ graciously. ' Do not entertain savages,' 

views. Bacon wrote, ' with trifles and gingles, but show 

them grace and justice, taking reasonable precautions against 
their attacks, but not seeking the favour of any one tribe 
amongst them by inciting it to attack another tribe.' Above 
all, it was the duty of a mother-country to promote the per- 
manence and the prosperity of every colonial settlement which 
had been formed with her approval. ' It is the sinfullest 
thing in the world to forsake or destitute a plantation once 
in forwardness. For, beside the dishonour, it is the guilti- 
ness of blood of many commiserable persons.' 

It was colonisation conceived on these great lines that Cap- 
tain John Smith, Ralegh's disciple, carried out in practice 
Captain with a measure of success. His idealism was 

a oh - n u> not of the tender kind which enfeebled his 

bmitn s 

views. working methods, but it flashed forth with brilliant 

force in the prophetic energy with which he preached the 
value of a colonial outlet to the surplus population of an 
old country. ' What so truly suits with honour and honesty 
as the discovering of things unknown, erecting towns, peo- 
pling countries, informing the ignorant, reforming things 
unjust, teaching virtue, and to gain our native mother-country 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 133 

a kingdom to attend her, to find employment for those that 
are idle because they know not what to do ? ' 

VII 

The rivalry between Spain and England which was largely 

the result of the simultaneous endeavour to colonise the 

newly-discovered countries reached its climax in 

J The 

1588, when Spain made a mighty effort to crush Spanish 
. c .iii Armada. 

English colonial enterprise at its fountain-head by 

equipping a great fleet to conquer and annex the island of 
Britain itself. Ralegh naturally took part in resisting the 
great expedition of the Spanish Armada, and contributed to 
the defeat of that magnificently insolent effort. He does not 
seem to have taken a very prominent part in active hostilities, 
but he did useful work; he helped to organise the victory. 
When the danger was past he was anxious to pursue the offen- 
sive with the utmost vigour and to forward attacks on Spain 
in all parts of the world. Her dominion of the Western 
oceans must be broken if England was to secure a colonial 
empire. Others for the moment took more active part than 
Ralegh in giving effect to the policy of aggression. But in 
1592 an expedition under his control captured a great Spanish 
vessel homeward bound from the East Indies with a cargo of 
the estimated value of upwards of half a million sterling. 

Ralegh had ventured his own money on the expedition, 
and was awarded a share of the plunder, but it was some- 
thing less than that to which he thought himself entitled, and 
he did not dissemble his annoyance. Ralegh was masterful 

and assertive in intercourse with professional col- 
Ralegh s 
leagues of his own rank. His colonising idealism hopes of 

gain. 

was not proof against the strain of idly watching 
others reap from active participation in the great strug- 
gle with Spain a larger personal reward than himself. 



134. GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

Desire for wealth grew upon him as the passions of youth 
cooled, and the hope that some of the profits which Spain 
had acquired from her settlements in the New World might 
fill his own coffers besieged his brain. Anxiety to make out 
of an energetic pursuit of colonisation a mighty fortune, was 
coming into conflict with the elevated aspirations of early 
days. The vehement struggle of vice and virtue for mastery 
over men's souls, which characterised the Elizabethan age 
in a greater degree than any other age, was seeking a battle- 
ground in Ralegh's spirit. 

Ralegh shared that versatility of interest and capacity 
which infected the enlightenment of the era. Like his great 
Intellectual contemporaries, his energy never allowed him to 
and* 111 S confine his aims to any one branch of effort. In- 

sympathies t eres (; i n literature and philosophy was intertwined 
with his interest in the practical affairs of life, and he had 
at command many avenues of escape from life's sordid 
temptations. The range of his speculative instinct was not 
limited by the material world. It was not enough for him 
to discover new countries or new wealth. He was ambitious 
to discover new truths of religion, of philosophy, of poetry. 
No man cherished a more enthusiastic or more disinterested 
affection for those who excelled in intellectual pursuits. No 
man was more generous in praise of contemporary poets, or 
better proved in word and deed his sympathy with the 
noblest aspirations of contemporary literature. From the 
early days of his career in Ireland he was the intimate 
associate of Spenser, who held civil office there, and lived in 
his neighbourhood. Spenser, the great poet and moralist, 
who in his age was second in genius only to the 
master poet, Shakespeare, was proud of the 
friendship. With characteristic ambition to master all 
branches of intellectual energy, Ralegh emulated his friend 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 135 

and neighbour in writing poetry. His success was paradoxi- 
cally great. His poetry breathes a lyric fervour which is not 
out of harmony with his disposition, but its frequent tone of 
placid meditation seems far removed from the stormy temper 
of his life. The most irrepressible of talkers, when speech 
was injurious to his own interests, he preached in verse more 
than once the virtues of silence: 

'Passions are likened best to flood and streams; 

The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb; 
So when affections yield discourse, it seems 

The bottom is but shallow whence they come. 
They that are rich in words, in words discover 
That they are poor in that which makes a lover.' 

Amid the rush and turmoil of politics and of warfare which 
absorbed the major part of his activity, Ralegh never for 
long abandoned 

'Those clear wells 
Where sweetness dwells,' 

— the sweetness of philosophy, poetry, history, and all the 
pacific arts that can engage the mind of man. Poetry was 
only one of many interests in the literary sphere. He loved 
to gather round him the boldest intellects of his day and, 
regardless of consequences, frankly to discuss with them the 
mysteries of existence. Marlowe, the founder of English 
tragedy, the tutor of Shakespeare, was his frequent com- 
panion. They debated together the evidences of Christianity, 
and reached the perilous conclusion that they were founded 
on sand. He was a member, too, of one of the earliest 
societies or clubs of Antiquaries in England, and surveyed 
the progress of civilisation in England from very early times. 
He caught light and heat from intercourse with all classes 
of men to whom things of the mind appealed. To him, 



136 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

tradition assigns the first invention of those famous meetings 
of men of letters which long dignified the ' Mermaid ' Tavern 

in Bread Street in the City of London. Credible 

Meetings 

at the tradition asserts that those meetings were at- 

tended by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and all 

the literary masters of the time; that there stimulating wit 

was freer than air. Genius encountered genius, each in its 

gayest humour. The spoken words were 

'So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, 
As if that every one from whence they came 
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, 
And had resolved to live a fool the rest 
Of his dull life.' 

No part of Ralegh's life could be dull. All parts of it were 
full of ' subtle flame.' But that flame was destined to burn 
itself out far away from the haunts of his comrades of 
the pen. 

VIII 

Ralegh's versatility, the free unfettered play of his fertile 
thought, distinguishes him even among Elizabethan English- 
men, and lends his biography the strangest mingling of light 
and shadow. His tireless speculative ambition manifested 
itself in the most imposing practical way when he was about 
forty years old. Self-contradiction was inherent in his acts. 
Despite his reverence for the triumphs of the intellect, the 
affairs of the world were ever under his eager observation. 
Ripening experience deepened the conviction that gold was 
the pivot on which human affairs mainly revolved, and that 
he who commanded untold sources of wealth could gratify 
all human desires for power. The opportunity of making such 
a conquest suddenly seemed to present itself to Ralegh. His 
poetic imagination made him credulous. He resolved on a 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 137 

pilgrimage to a fabulous city, where endless treasure awaited 

the victorious invader. 

Reports had been spread in Spain of the existence of a 

city of fabulous wealth in South America to which had been 

given the Spanish name of ' El Dorado.' Its lo- 

& r El Dorado. 

cation was vaguely defined. It was stated to be 

in the troublous country that we now know as Venezuela, 
which is itself part of the wider territory called by geograph- 
ers Guiana. The rumour fired Ralegh's brain. The ambition to 
investigate its truth proved irresistible. Hurriedly he sent out 
an agent to enquire into the story on what was thought to be 
the spot, but the messenger brought him no information of 
importance. Vicarious enquiry proved of no avail. At 
length in 1595 Ralegh went out himself. He infected his 
friends with his own sanguine expectation. He succeeded 
in enlisting the sympathy or material support of the chief 
ministers of state. He obtained a commission from the 
Queen permitting him to wage war if necessary upon the 
Spaniard and the native American in South America. No risk 
was too great to be run in such a quest. The exploit which 
was to provide endless peril and excitement was the turning- 
point of Ralegh's career. 

Without delay Ralegh reached Trinidad, a Spanish settle- 
ment. From the first active hostilities had to be faced. Lit- 
tle resistance was offered, however, at Trinidad, 

' ' ' The 

and Ralegh took prisoner the Spanish governor, Expedition 

to Guiana, 
who proved a most amiable gentleman. The gover- 
nor freely told Ralegh all he knew of this reputed city or mine 
of gold on the mainland. A Spanish explorer a few years 
ago had, it appeared, lived among the natives of Guiana for 
seven months, and on his death-bed bore witness to a limit- 
less promise of gold near the banks of the great river Orinoco 
and its tributaries which watered the territory of Guiana. 



138 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

In April 1595 Ralegh, with a little flotilla of ten boats 
bearing one hundred men, and provisions for a month, started 
on his voyage up the river. The equipment was far from 
adequate for the stirring enterprise. ' Our vessels,' Ralegh 
wrote, ' were no other than wherries, one little barge, a 
small cockboat, and a bad galliota, which we framed in haste 
for that purpose at Trinidad, and those little boats had nine 
or ten men apiece with victuals and arms.' They had to row 
against the stream, which flowed with extraordinary fury; the 
banks were often covered with thick wood, and floating timber 
was an ever present danger. Debarcation for prospecting 
purposes was attended with the gravest risks. The swiftness 
of the current often rendered swimming or wading impossible. 

The hardships which Ralegh and his companions faced 

hardly admit of exaggeration. Almost every day they were 

' melted with heat in rowing and marching, and suddenly wet 

again with great showers. They ate of all sorts of corrupt 

fruit and made meals of fresh fish without season.' They 

lodged in the open air every night. Not in the filthiest 

prison in England could be found men in a more 
Hardships. . 

unsavory and loathsome condition, than were 

Ralegh and his friends while they ran their race for the 

golden prize. But their spirits never drooped. Their hopes 

ran high to the end. Ralegh was able in his most desperate 

straits to note in detail the aspects of nature and the varied 

scenery that met his gaze. Despite the inhospitable river 

banks, nature smiled on much of the country beyond. After 

climbing one notable hill, ' there appeared,' Ralegh wrote 

with attractive vivacity, ' some ten or twelve waterfalls in 

sight, every one as high above the other as a 
The 
natural church tower, which fell with that fury, that 

the rebound of waters made it seem as if they had 

been all covered over with a great shower of rain; and in 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 139 

some places we took it at the first for a smoke that had 
risen over some great town. For mine own part, I was well 
persuaded from thence to have returned, being a very ill 
footman; but the rest were all so desirous to go near the said 
strange thunder of waters, as they drew me on by little and 
little, till we came into the next valley, where we might better 
discern the same. I never saw a more beautiful country, nor 
more lively prospects, hills so raised here and there over the 
valleys, the river winding into divers branches, the plains 
adjoining without bush or stubble, all fair green grass, the 
ground of hard sand, easy to march on either for horse or 
foot, the deer crossing in every path, the birds towards the 
evening singing on every tree with a thousand several tunes, 
cranes and herons of white, crimson, and carnation, perching 
on the river's side, the air fresh, with a gentle easterly wind; 
and every stone that we stopped to take up promised either 
gold or silver by his complexion.' 

But Ralegh and his friends had mistaken their route, and 
were bent on what proved a fool's errand. The golden 
fleece was unattainable. The promise of the stones on the 
shores was imperfectly fulfilled. After proceeding four 
hundred and forty miles up the difficult river, further 
progress was found impossible. Then Ralegh and his com- 
panions went down with the current back to the sea. The 
' white spar ' on the river bank, in which appeared to be signs 
of gold, was all that the travellers brought home. Metal- 
lurgists to whom he submited them, on revisiting London, 
declared the appearance true. 1 

1 Scoffers freely asserted that the ' white spar,' many tons of which Ralegh 
brough home with him, was nothing else than ' marcasite ' or iron-pyrites. 
In the letter to the reader with which he prefaced his Discovery of Guiana 
Ralegh categorically denied the allegation. He wrote hopefully, ' In London 
it was first assayed by Master Westwood, a refiner dwelling in Wood Street, 
and it held after the rate of 12,000 or 13,000 pounds a ton. Another sort 
was afterwards tried by Master Bulmar and Master Dimoke, assay-master, 



140 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

There is no doubt that Ralegh came near making a great 

discovery. Little question exists that a great gold mine lay 

in Venezuela, not far from the furthest point of 
Within ^ 

reach of his voyage up the river Orinoco. Many years 

later, during the nineteenth century, a gold mine 

was discovered within the range of Ralegh's exploration, and 

has since been worked to great profit. But the El Dorado 

which Ralegh thought to grasp had eluded him. It remained 

for him a dream. Not that he ever wavered in his confident 

belief that the city of gold existed and was yet to be won. 

He retired for the time with the resolve to make new advances 

hereafter. He left behind, with a tribe of friendly natives, 

'one Francis Sparrow (a servant of Captain Gifford), who 

was desirous to tarry, and could describe a country with his 

pen, and a boy of mine, Hugh Goodwin, to learn the 

language.' 

Affairs at home prevented Ralegh's early return to South 
America. A new Spanish settlement soon blocked the en- 
trance to the river Orinoco, and the region he had entered 
was put beyond his reach. A last desperate attempt to force 
a second passage up the Orinoco brought, as events turned 
out, Ralegh to the scaffold. He had soared to heights at which 
he could not sustain his flight. 

One result of Ralegh's first experience of the banks of the 
Orinoco demands a recognition, which requires no apology. 
His narrative of the expedition — The Discovery of Guiana 
— ranks with the most vivid pictures of travel. No 

and it held after the rate of 23,000 pounds a ton. There was some of it again 
tried by Master Palmer, comptroller of the mint, and Master Dimoke in Gold- 
smith's hall, and it was held after at the rate of 26,900 pounds a ton. There 
was also at the same time, and by the same persons, a trial made of the 
dust of the said mine, which held eigr* pounds six ounces weight of gold in 
the hundred ; there was likewise at the same time, a trial made of an image 
of copper made in Guiana which held a third part gold, besides divers trials 
made in the country, and by others in London.' 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 141 

reader, be he naturalist or geographer or ethnologist, or 

mere lover of stirring adventure, will turn to the fascinating 

pages without delight. Literary faculty in a traveller is 

always refreshing. Few books of travel are more exhilarating 

or invigorating than this story by Ralegh of his hazardous 

voyage. 

When Ralegh came back to England from the Orinoco 

he flung himself with undaunted energy into further conflict 

with Spain. There were rumours of a new span- 
Further 
ish invasion of England, which it was deemed conflict 

i i . o i with Spain. 

essential to divert by attacking Spain in her own 
citadels. Two great expeditions were devised, and in both 
Ralegh took an active part. He was with the fleet which 
attacked Cadiz in 1596. Again next year he joined in a 
strenuous effort to intercept Spanish treasure ships off the 
Azores. Ralegh worked ill under discipline, and chiefly, 
owing to his quarrels with his fellow-commanders, the attempt 
on the islands of the Atlantic failed. Fortune had never 
been liberal in the bestowal of her favours on him. At best 
she had extended to him a cold neutrality. Little of the 
glory or the gain that came of the last two challenges to 
Spain fell to Ralegh. Thenceforth the fickle goddess 
assumed an attitude of menace, which could not be mistaken. 
She became his active and persistent foe. 



IX 

Ralegh's later years were dogged by disaster. With the 
death of Queen Elizabeth begins the story of his ruin. She 
had proved no constant mistress and had at times driven him 
from her presence. His marriage in 1592 had excited more 
than the usual measure of royal resentment. But Queen 
Elizabeth was not obdurate in her wrath. Her favour was 



142 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

never forfeited irrevocably. Ralegh long held the court 

office of captain of the guard. In her latest years, there 

was renewal of his sovereign's old show of regard for 

him. She liked to converse with him in private; and the 

envious declared that she ' took him for a kind of oracle.' To 

the last he addressed her in those adulatory strains which she 

loved. During all her reign, adversity had mingled in his 

lot with prosperity, but prosperity delusively seemed at the 

close to sway the scales. 

A bitter spirit of faction divided Queen Elizabeth's advisers 

against themselves. Ralegh's hot-temper and impatience of 

subordination, made him an easy mark for the 
Ralegh and 
Court hatred and uncharitableness which the factious 

atmosphere fostered. The outspoken language 
which was habitual to him was violently resented by rival 
claimants to the Queen's favour. With one of these, the Earl 
of Essex, who was even more self-confident and impetuous 
than himself, he maintained an implacable feud until the 
Earl's death on the scaffold. Ralegh had come into conflict 
with Lord Howard of Effingham, the great admiral of the 
Armada, and an influential member of the Howard family. 
The admiral's numerous kindred regarded him with aversion. 
Sir Robert Cecil, the principal Secretary of State in Queen 
Elizabeth's last years, who held in his hand all the threads 
of England's policy, although more outwardly complacent, 
cherished suspicion of Ralegh. It was only royal favour that 
had hitherto rendered innocuous the shafts of his foes. Now 
that that favour was withdrawn Ralegh was to find that 
he had sown the wind and was to reap the whirlwind. For- 
tune, wrote a contemporary, ' picked him out of purpose 
. . . to use as her tennis ball ' ; having tossed him up 
from nothingness to a point within hail of greatness she then 
unconcernedly tossed him down again. 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 143 

Between Ralegh and his new sovereign, James i., little 

sympathy subsisted. They knew little of one another. To 

Ralegh's personal enemies at court James owed 

& r The acces- 

the easy road which led him to the English throne, sion of 

James I. 
Ralegh on purely personal grounds, which court 

schisms fully account for, abstained from showing enthu- 
siasm for James's accession. He fully recognised the justice 
of the Scottish monarch's title to the English crown. But 
he had not pledged himself like his private foes in a prelimi- 
nary correspondence to support the new King actively. By 
that preliminary correspondence the King set great store. 
He was not prepossessed in favour of any of Elizabeth's 
courtiers who had failed before Elizabeth's death to avow 
in writing profoundest sympathy with his cause. 

As soon as James became King of England, Ralegh's 
position at court was seen to be insecure. His enemies were 
favourably placed for avenging any imagined indignity which 
his influence with the late sovereign had enabled him to inflict 
on them. He lay at he mercy of factions which were 
markedly hostile to himself and held the ear of the new 
sovereign. There was no likelihood that the new wearer of 
the crown would exert himself to protect him from assault. 

At first a comparatively petty disgrace was put on him. 
He was unceremoniously superseded in his court office of 
captain of the guard, a post which had brought him into 
much personal contact with the late sovereign. He naturally 

resented the affront and showed irritation among 

Fabricated 

his friends. The king's allies found ready charges of 

treason. 

means of increasing their own importance and 

improving their prospects of advancement by drawing to 
light of day and exaggerating any hasty expression of doubt 
respecting James's legal title to the English crown of which 
they could find evidence. Dishonest agents easily distorted 



144 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

an inconsiderate word of dissatisfaction with the political 
situation into deliberate treason. An intricate charge of this 
character was rapidly devised against Ralegh by his factious 
foes, and almost without warning he was brought within 
peril of his life. He was accused on vague hearsay of having 
joined in a plot to surprise the king's person with a view to 
his abduction or assassination. It was alleged that he was 
conspiring to set up another on the throne, to wit, the king's 
distant cousin, Arabella Stuart. Ralegh was put under arrest. 
Thoroughly exasperated by the victory which his enemies 
had won over him, he for the first time in his life lost nerve. 
He made an abortive attempt at suicide. This rash act was 
held by his persecutors to attest his guilt. When he was 
brought to trial at Winchester — the plague in London had 
compelled the Court's migration — all legal forms were 
Sentence pressed against him. In the result he was con- 
of death. demned to a traitor's death (17 Nov. 1603). His 
estates were forfeited, and such offices as he still retained 
were taken from him. 

For three weeks Ralegh lay in Winchester Castle in almost 
daily expectation of the executioner's dread summons. He 

sought consolation in literature, and in letters and 
The respite. 

in poems addressed to his wife he sought to recon- 
cile himself to his fate. He made no complaint of his per- 
verse lot. He had drunk deep of life and was not averse 
in his passion for new experience to taste death. But James 
faltered at the last and hesitated to sign the death-warrant. 
A month after the trial Ralegh was informed that he was 
reprieved of the capital punishment. He was to be kept a 
prisoner in the Tower of London. He was not pardoned, nor 
was his sentence commuted to any fixed term of confinement. 
As long as he was alive, it was tacitly assumed by those in 
high places that liberty would be denied him. It was diffi- 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 145 

cult for one of Ralegh's energy to reconcile himself to the 
situation. Bondage was for him barely thinkable. Long 
years of waiting could not vanquish the assured hope that 
freedom would again be his, and he would carry further the 
projects that were as yet only half begun. 



Ralegh's intellectual activity was invincible, and there he 
found the main preservative against the numbing despair 
with which the prison's galling tedium menaced i nt ^ e 
him. He was allowed some special privileges. At Tower - 
first, his lot was alleviated by the companionship of his wife 
and sons. Within the precincts of the Tower and its garden 
he was apparently free to move about at will. But he con- 
centrated all his mental strength while in confinement on 
study — study of exceptionally varied kinds. Literature and 
science divided his allegiance. In a laboratory or still-house 
which he was allowed to occupy in the garden of the Tower 
he carried on a long series of chemical experi- g c j en tifi c 
ments. Many of his scientific investigations cun0Slt y- 
proved successful; he condensed fresh water from salt, an 
art which has only been practised generally during the past 
century. He compounded new drugs against various disorders 
which became popular, and were credited with great efficacy. 
Chemistry, medicine, philosophy, all appealed to his catholic 
curiosity. Nevertheless his main intellectual energy was ab- 
sorbed by literature. The grandeur of human life and aspira- 
tion impressed him in his enforced retirement from the world 
more deeply than when he was himself a free actor on the 
stage. He designed a noble contribution to English prose 
literature, his History of the World. He set him- History of 
self the heavy task of surveying minutely and ex- theWorld - 
actly human endeavours in the early days of human 

K 



146 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

experience. He sought to write a history of the five great 
empires of the East — of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, 
and Macedonia. Only a fragment of the work was com- 
pleted; it broke off abruptly one hundred and thirty years 
before the Christian era, with the conquest of Macedon by 
Rome. But Ralegh's achievement is a lasting memorial of 
his genius and the elevated aspect of his career. 

Ralegh did not approach a study of history in a strictly 
critical spirit, and his massive accumulations of facts, which 
he collected from six or seven hundred volumes in many 
tongues, have long been superannuated. But he showed en- 
lightenment in many an unexpected direction. He betrayed 
a lively appreciation of the need of studying geography 
together with history, and he knew the value of chronological 
accuracy. His active imagination made him a master of 
historic portraiture, and historical personages like Artaxerxes, 
Queen Jezebel, Demetrius, Pyrrhus, or Epaminondas, are 
drawn with a master's pencil. 

Ralegh's methods were discursive. He digressed from the 
ancient to the modern world. The insight which illumined 
Censure of ms account of the heroes of a remote past was 
Henry viii. suffered, now and again to play quite irrelevantly 
about the personalities of recent rulers of his own land. He 
was content to speak the truth as far as it was known, 
without fear of consequences. Of Henry viii. he writes un- 
compromisingly, thus: 'If all the pictures and patterns of 
a merciless prince were lost in the world, they might all 
again be painted to the life out of the story of this king. For 
how many servants did he advance in haste (but for what 
virtue no man could suspect), and with the change of his fancy 
ruined again, no man knowing for what offence! . . . 
What laws and wills did he devise, to establish this kingdom 
in his own issues? using his sharpest weapons to cut off and 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 147 

cut down those branches which sprang from the same root that 
himself did. And in the end (notwithstanding these his so 
many irreligious provisions) it pleased God to take away all his 
own without increase; though, for themselves in their several 
kinds, all princes of eminent virtue.' The father of his late 
royal mistress could hardly have been more caustically limned. 
It was Ralegh's intense love of the present which fre- 
quently turned his narrative by devious paths far from his 

rightful topics of the past. He cannot resist the 

° r Criticism 

temptation of commenting freely on matters within of current 
i • i • i , . . •, events, 

his personal cognisance as they rose to his mind 

in the silence of his prison cell. Despite the consequent 
irregularity of plan, his strange irrelevances endow the 
History in the sight of posterity with most of its freshness 
and originality. The mass of his material may be condemned 
as dryasdust, but the breath of living experience preserves 
substantial fragments of it from decay. A perennial interest 
attaches to Ralegh's suggestive treatment of philosophic ques- 
tions, such as the origin of law. Remarks on the tactics of the 
Spaniards in the Armada, on the capture of Fayal in the 
Azores, on the courage of Elizabethan Englishmen, on the 
tenacity of Spaniards, on England's relations with Ireland, 
may be inappropriate to their Babylonian or Persian sur- 
roundings, but they reflect the first-hand knowledge of an 
observer of infinite mental resource, who never failed to 
express his own opinions with sincerity and dignity. His 
style, although often involved, is free from conceits, and 
keeps pace as a rule with the majesty of his design. 

The general design and style of Ralegh's History of the 
World are indeed more noteworthy than any de- The mora i 
tails of its scheme or execution. The design is o"{£° se 
instinct with magnanimous insight into the springs enterprise, 
of human action. Throughout it breathes a serious moral 



148 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

purpose. It illustrates the sureness with which ruin over- 
takes ' great conquerors and other troublers of the world ' who 
neglect law whether human or divine. It is homage paid to 
the corner-stone of civilised society by one who knew at 
once how to keep and how to break laws of both God and 
man. There is an inevitable touch of irony in Ralegh's large- 
hearted sermon. After showing how limitless is man's ambi- 
tion and how rotten is its fruit unless it be restrained by 
respect for justice, Ralegh turns aside in his concluding pages 
to salute human greatness, however it may be achieved, as an 
empty dream. He closes his book with a sublime apostrophe 
to Death the destroyer, who is after all the sole arbiter of 
mortal man's destiny. 

XI 

But despite all his characteristic alertness of mind, 
Ralegh, while a prisoner in the Tower, was always looking 
Hopes of forward hopefully to the day of his release. His 
freedom. m i n d often reverted to that land of gold, the 
exploration of which he had just missed completing eight or 
nine years before. The ambition to repeat the experiment 
grew on him. James i/s Queen, and her son and heir Henry 
Prince of Wales, had always regarded Ralegh as the victim 
of injustice, and sympathised with his aspirations for liberty. 
They listened encouragingly to his pleas for a new expedition 
to America. Ralegh was not ready to neglect the opportunity 
their favour offered him. From them he turned to petition 
the Privy Council and the King himself. He would refuse 
no condition if his prayer was granted. He offered to risk 
his head if he went once more to the Orinoco and failed in 
The his search. At length, after five years of per- 

returnto tinacious petitioning, the King yielded, perhaps 
Guiana. a j. ^he instigation of his new favourite George 

Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham, who anticipated 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 149 

profit from his complacence. Ralegh was released from the 
Tower after thirteen years' imprisonment (19th March 1616), 
on the condition that he should make a new voyage to Guiana 
and secure the country's gold mines. At first Ralegh was 
ordered to live at his own house in the custody of a keeper, 
but this restriction was removed next year and he was at 
liberty to make his preparations as he would. 

Ralegh was sixty-five years old, and although his spirit 
mounted high his health was breaking. Out of prison, he 
was a desolate old man without means or friends. There 
was no possibility of his planning to a successful issue a new 
quest of El Dorado. The project had to reckon, too, with 
powerful foes and critics. When the news of his expedition 
reached the ears of the Spanish Ambassador in London, he 
protested that all Guiana was his master's prop- s pan } s h 
erty, and that Ralegh had no right to approach P rotests - 
it. It was objected that Ralegh's design was a vulgar act 
of piracy. Ralegh was unmoved by the argument. He 
acknowledged no obligation to respect the scruples of on- 
lookers at home or abroad. The assurances given by the 
government that he would peacefully respect all rights of 
Spanish settlers in Guiana floated about him like the idle 
wind. 

All that Ralegh said or did when preparing to leave Eng- 
land increased the odds against him. His reputation sank 
lower and lower. Dangers and difficulties only rendered his 
mood more desperate. He was, like Banquo's murderer, 

'So weary with disasters, tugged with fortune, 
That he would set his life on any chance 
To mend it or be rid on 't.' 

Few men of repute would bear him company. He cared not 
who went with him provided he went at all. It was an ill- 



150 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

omened crew that he collected. He filled his ship (he after- 
wards admitted) with the world's scum, with drunkards and 
blasphemers, and others whose friends were only glad to pay- 
money to get them out of the country. 

At length he started. But fortune frowned on him more 
fiercely than before. The weather was unpropitious. He had 
to put in off Cork. At length he weighed anchor for South 
America, but on the voyage fell ill of a fever. Arrived off 
the river Orinoco, he was successful in an attack on the new 
Spanish settlement at its mouth which bore the name of 
St. Thome. Careless of the promises solemnly made on his 
behalf by his government, he rudely despoiled it and set fire 
to it; but the doubtful triumph cost him the death of a 
companion whom he could ill spare, his eldest son, Walter. 
Thenceforward absolute failure dogged his steps. His at- 
tempt to ascend the river was quickly defeated by the 

activity of the new Spanish settlers. Nothing 
Failure ' * * 

of the remained for him but to return home. He had 

expedition. 

failed in what he had pledged his head to per- 
form; contrary to conditions he had molested the Spanish 
settlement. He reached Plymouth in despair. An attempt 
at flight to France failed, and he was sent again to the 
Tower. 

One fate alone awaited him. He was already under 
sentence of death. By embroiling his country anew with 
Disgrace Spain, he was held to have revived his old offence, 
and death. rp he E n gij sn judges declared, harshly and with 
doubtful justice, that the old sentence must be carried out. 
The circumstance that ' he never had his pardon for his 
former treason ' was treated as argument which there was no 
controverting. Accordingly, on Wednesday 28th October 
l6l 8, the ruined man was brought from the Tower to the 
bar of the King's Bench. He was asked by the Lord Chief 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 151 

Justice why he should not suffer ' execution of death/ accord- 
ing to the judgment of death ' for his treason in the first 
year of the king.' He offered protest but his answer was 
deemed by the court to be insufficient. He was taken back 
to the prison, and the next day was appointed for the execu- 
tion of the old sentence. ' He broke his fast early in the 
morning/ according to a contemporary annalist, and, to the 
scandal of many, smoked a pipe at the solemn moment ' in 
order to settle his spirits.' At eight o'clock he was conducted 
to a scaffold erected in Palace Yard, Westminster, outside 
the Houses of Parliament. 

Ralegh faced death boldly and without complaining. He 
talked cheerfully with those around him and in a speech to 
the spectators thanked God that he was allowed ' to die in 
the light.' Speaking from written notes he traversed the 
various imputations that had been laid upon him, and con- 
cluded with the words, ' I have a long journey to take and 
must bid the company farewell.' As his fingers felt the 
edge of the axe, he smilingly said to the sheriffs : ' This 
is a sharp medicine but it is a sure cure for all diseases.' 
Then he bade the reluctant executioner strike, and at two 
blows his head fell from his body. 

' After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.' The night before 
he ascended the scaffold he had penned the simple lines: 

' Even such is time, that takes in trust 
Our youth, our joys, our all we have, 
And pays us but with earth and dust; 
Who, in the dark and silent grave 

When we have wandered all our ways, 
Shuts up the story of our days. 
But from this earth, this grave, this dust, 
My God shall raise me up I trust.' 



152 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

He gave death welcome when it arrived to claim him in 
the same philosophic spirit that he had apostrophised it a 
few years earlier, putting on the finishing stroke to his 
History of the World: — ' O eloquent, just, and mighty 
Death! . . . thou hast drawn together all the far stretched 
greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and 
covered it all over with these two narrow words — Hie jacet! * 

XII 

Ralegh's final labour is the least admirable episode of his 
career. It was a buccaneering raid, and admits of no eulogy, 
The con- even after we make allowance for the strange cir- 
es™mate r of cumstances in which it was undertaken and suffer 
Ralegh. pj^y ^ t em p er condemnation. It was a desperate 

bid for his personal freedom. But his failure was punished 
with tragic injustice. His fate excited widespread lamenta- 
tion. The facts seemed to the casual observer to be capable 
of more than one interpretation. His memory was long 
venerated as that of a man who sacrificed his life in an 
honest, public-spirited, magnanimous endeavour to injure his 
country's foes. 

Ralegh's character is an inextricable tangle of good and 
evil. ' What matter how the head lie ! ' he had said when 
placing his neck on the block. ' What matter how the head 
lie so the heart be right? ' Many of his countrymen deemed 
those words his fitting epitaph. But neither Ralegh's heart 
The good nor head was often quite in a righteous posture. 
fnhisT 1 He was physically as courageous, intellectually as 

character. resourceful and versatile, as any man known to 
history. He was a daring politician, soldier, sailor, traveller, 
and coloniser. He was a poet of exuberant fancy, a historian 
of solid industry and insight, and a political philosopher of 
depth. He ranks with the great writers of English prose. 



SIR WALTER RALEGH 153 

Things of the mind appealed to him equally with things of 
the senses or the sinews. Many serious-minded men treated 
his History of the World with hardly less respect and venera- 
tion than the Bible itself, and it was sedulously pressed in the 
seventeenth century on the attention of young men, whose 
minds lacked power of application, as mental ballast of the 
finest quality. 1 Yet it was mental ballast which Ralegh's 
own character chiefly lacked. His manifold activity declined 
restraint. He rebelled against law. His actions were heed- 
less of morality. He was proud, covetous, and unscrupulous. 
Yet the influence of his inevitable failures was greater 
than that of most men's successes. The main failure of his 
life was more fruitful than any ordinary triumph. His failure 
His passion for colonial expansion, for the settle- andsuccess - 
ment of America by Englishmen, lost in course of time 
almost every trace of the idealism in which it took rise. 
Exaggerated hopes of gain, a swollen spirit of aggressive- 
ness, ultimately robbed his endeavours of true titles to 
respect. His final effort led to little apparent result beyond 
the loss of his own head; his fellow-countrymen never gained 
the mastery of South America ; they never obtained exclusive 
possession of its mines, the desperate cause in which Ralegh 
flung away his life. None the less the spur that his appar- 
ently barren and ill-conceived exploits gave to English col- 
onising; cannot be overestimated. All over the 

& The true 

world Englishmen subsequently worked in his founder 

of Virginia, 
spirit. But it is his primary attempt to create 

a new England in the Northern Continent of America 

1 Cromwell the Protector when he found his eldest son Richard wasting his 
time and energy in athletic pastime bade him recreate himself with Sir 
Walter Ralegh's history. There was advantage, Cromwell deemed, in the 
work's massive proportions; 'it's a body of history' Cromwell told his heir, 
' and will add much more to your understanding than fragments of story.' 
Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Cromwell, ii. 255. 



154 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

which gives him his genuine credentials to fame. It was 
an attempt on which he lavished his fortune in the spirit of a 
dreamer, and at the time it seemed, like so much that Ralegh 
sought to do, to be made in vain. Yet it was mainly due to his 
influence, if not to the work of his hands, that the great Eng- 
lish settlements of Virginia and New England came into being, 
and gave religious and political liberty, spiritual and intellect- 
ual energy, a new home, a new scope, wherein to develop to 
the advantage of the human race. However sternly the moral- 
ist may condemn Ralegh's conduct in the great crises of his 
career, he must, in justice, admit that the good that Ralegh 
did lives after him, while the evil was for the most part 
buried with his bones. Dark shadows envelop much of his 
life and death, but there are patches of light which are 
inextinguishable. 




Edmund Spenser. 

From the portrait in the possession of the Earl of ' Kimtaull at Dupplin Castle. 



EDMUND SPENSER 

'A sweeter swan than ever sang in Po, 
A shriller nightingale than ever blessed 
The prouder groves of self admiring Rome! 
Blithe was each valley, and each shepherd proud, 
While he did chant his rural minstrelsy; 
Attentive was full many a dainty ear.; 
Nay, hearers hung upon his melting tongue, 
While sweetly of his Faerie Queene he sung, 
While to the waters' fall he tun'd her fame.' 

The Return from Parnassus, Part II. Act I. Sc. 2. 

[Bibliographt. — The memoir by Dean Church in the ' Men of 
Letters' Series is a useful critical biography in brief compass. 
The 'Globe' edition of the poet's work, with an introductory 
memoir by Prof. J. W. Hales, supplies a good text. Of the ten 
volumes of Dr. Grosart's privately printed edition of the works 
(1880-2), the first volume is devoted to biography by the gen- 
eral editor, and to critical essays from many competent pens. 
Of earlier critical editions of Spenser the chief is that by Henry 
John Todd, which was issued in eight volumes in 1805. A 
good criticism of Spenser appears in James Russell Lowell's 
Essays on the English Poets.] 



Literature was a recreation of all men of spirit in the 
Elizabethan age. It mattered little whether or no they 
were heirs of great genius. Literature was almost The Eii za - 
universally the occupation of such leisure as could betnar * 
be snatched from the practical affairs of the world. P oetrv - 
Statesmen and soldiers, in their hours of ease, courted the 
Muses with assiduity. These damsels might discourage their 
advances, but the suitors were persistent. Poetry was the 

155 



156 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

politest of recreations ; verses were delightful ' toys to busy 
idle brains.' Queen Elizabeth and her successor James i. are 
of the number of English authors in both poetry and prose. 
' To evaporate their thoughts in a sonnet,' was ' the common 
way ' of almost all nobles and courtiers, who concentrated 
their main energies on sport, politics, and war. At the same 
time the professional pursuit of letters — the writing of books 
for money, the reliance on the pen for a livelihood — was held 
to be degrading. Literature was not reckoned to be in any 
sense a profession fit for a man of high birth to follow. It 
was the gorgeous ornament or plaything of life, and no 
approved source of its sustenance. 

Not that literary work failed on occasion to prove remun- 
erative. From one branch of Elizabethan literature — from 
Profits of ^ ne drama — there were dazzling profits to be 
literature. drawn. An inevitable measure of social prestige 
attached in the Elizabethan, no less than in other eras, to 
substantial property; yet to property that was derived from 
the exercise of the pen social prestige could only attach 
in Elizabethan society, after the owner had ceased to write 
for a living. Shakespeare bore convincing testimony to the 
strength of the prevailing mistrust of any professional pursuit 
of letters by retiring, at a comparatively early age, from 
active work, in order to enjoy, unhampered by the conven- 
tional prejudice, the material fruits of his past energy. 

A poet by nature, of intensely aesthetic instinct, Spenser 
lacked inherited sources of livelihood; but the social senti- 
Spenser's rnent of the era compelled him to seek a career 
career. elsewhere than in literature. In a far larger and 

higher sense than his friends Sir Philip Sidney or Sir Walter 
Ralegh he was a favoured servant of the Muses. But he no 
more than they reckoned poetry to be his practical concern 
in Hfe. Political service, endeavour to gain remunerative 



EDMUND SPENSER 157 

political office, coloured his career as it coloured theirs. He 
knew the vanity of political ambitions. But opportunities of 
quiet contemplation apart from the haunts of politicians, 
opportunities for cultivating in seclusion his great literary 
genius, were not what he asked of those who had it in their 
power to fashion his line of life. Unlike his great successor 
Tennyson, with whom his affinities are many, he deliberately 
engaged in business which lay outside Parnassian fields. He 
sought with zeal and persistency political employment and 
official promotion. 

As an officer of state, Spenser achieved small repute or 
reward. The record of his worldly struggles is sordid and 
insignificant. Often, amid the entanglements and The con . 
disappointments of political strife, did he give hfe^oltic 
voice to that cry of the Psalmist, which his con- zeal - 
temporary, Francis Bacon, pathetically echoed, that his life 
was passed in a strange land. It was only as a poet that he 
won happiness or renown. It is only as supreme poet of 
the English Renaissance that he lives. Imbued from boyhood 
with the spirit of the new learning, he was in rarest sympathy 
with the classics, and with the literature of contemporary 
Italy and France. An innate delight in the harmonies of 
language grew with his years. A passion for beauty domi- 
nated his thought. Although he was brought up in the new 
religion of Protestantism and accepted it without demur, 
doctrinal religion laid her hand lightly on his intellect. It 
was in an ideal world that he found the objects of his worship. 
None the less, in order to realise the manner of man Spenser 
was, and the sturdy links which bound him to his age, his vain 
political endeavours must find on the biographer's canvas 
hardly a smaller place than his splendid poetic triumphs. 



158 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



Spenser, who ranks second to Shakespeare among Eliza- 
bethan poets, was a native of London. Like Sir Thomas 
His humble More, he was a native of the capital city of the 
birth. kingdom, but he came of a substantial family 

whose home was elsewhere, in Lancashire. He was a distant 
relative of the noble house of Spencer, many members of 
which have played an important part in English political 
history. But, however good Spenser's descent, his father 
was a London tradesman, a journeyman cloth-maker who 
was at one time in the service of a wool-dealer. 

The poet was born, probably in 1552 — the year of Ralegh's 
birth — in East Smithfield. About his birthplace there 
His birth- glowed in his infancy the fires of religious intol- 
place. erance — intolerance of that blind and inconsequent 

type which first won Sir Thomas More's allegiance, and then 
shifting the quarter from which it blew, drove him to the 
scaffold. 

But when Spenser was six years of age, the sway of un- 
reason was brought to a stand. The fanatic Catholic, Queen 

Mary, died, and with the accession of Queen 
Queen 

Elizabeth's Elizabeth to the throne, the spirit of the nation 
accession. 

found a practicable equilibrium. Protestantism 

with a promise of peace was in the ascendant; Catholi- 
cism, although by no means exorcised, was not in a 
position to pursue open hostilities. Another six years 
passed, and while the nation was enjoying its first taste of 
security, Shakespeare was born. But the interval which 
separated Shakespeare from Spenser was wider than that 
difference of twelve years in their dates of birth suggests. 
Shakespeare belonged exclusively to Elizabethan England, 
which saw the final development of Renaissance culture. 



EDMUND SPENSER 159 

Spenser's memory reached further back and absorbed many 
an ideal and thought which were nearly obsolete when 
Shakespeare began to write. The mass of Shakespeare's 
work belongs to the epoch which followed Spenser's 
death. Spenser's elder genius flowered and passed away 
before Shakespeare's younger genius was of full age. 

But the two men's outward careers ran at the first on much 
the same lines. There was a strong resemblance between 
the circumstances of Spenser's boyhood and of s penser » s 
Shakespeare's, which it behoves sceptics of the y° uth - 
admitted facts of Shakespeare's biography to study closely. 
In spite of the claim of Spenser's father to high descent, his 
walk in life was similar to that of Shakespeare's father. 
Better educational opportunities were open to a tradesman's 
son in London than to a tradesman's son in a small village, 
but their superiority is easily capable of exaggeration. The 
trade or guild of merchant tailors, with which the elder 
Spenser was distantly connected, had lately founded a new 
school in London — the Merchant Taylors' School for sons of 
tailors. To that school, which still flourishes, Edmund Spen- 
ser was sent as a boy, under very like conditions to those 
which brought Shakespeare to the grammar school of Strat- 
ford-on-Avon. 

Spenser's headmaster was an enlightened teacher, Richard 
Mulcaster, who believed in physical as well as intellectual 
training; who thought girls deserved as good an At 
education as boys; who urged the importance of Taylors? 
instruction in music and singing; and who turned Sch ° o1 - 
a deaf ear to the prayers of cockering mothers and indulgent 
fathers when appeal was made to him to mitigate the punish- 
ment of pupils. Spenser's headmaster had imbibed the spirit 
of pedagogy as Plato first taught it, and More and Ascham 
had developed it in the light of the Renaissance. But the 



160 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

elder Spenser was not well off, and no special attention was 
paid his son. The boy's school-days threatened to be short. 
Happily a merchant had lately left large sums of money 
to be bestowed on poor London scholars — poor scholars of 
the schools about London — and under this benefaction Ed- 
mund received much-needed assistance. Such charities as that 
by which Spenser benefited were numerous in Elizabethan 
England, and charitable funds were largely applied to the 
noble purpose of assisting poor lads to complete their educa- 
tion. What American merchants are doing now for education 
in their country more conspicuously than elsewhere, Eliza- 
bethan merchants were doing for education in Elizabethan 
England. It was owing to this enlightened application of 
wealth that Spenser was enabled to finish his school career. 

Promising boys of Elizabethan England, whether rich or 
poor, were encouraged to pursue their studies at the Univer- 
AtCam- sities on leaving school, even if their parents 
bridge. could not supply them with means of subsistence. 

The college endowments would carry a poor student through 
the greater part of an academic career, and might at need be 
supplemented by private munificence. Spenser went to Cam- 
bridge — to Pembroke Hall (or College) — trusting for, 
pecuniary support to the college endowments. He was com- 
pelled to enter the College in the lowest rank, the rank of 
a sizar. Sizars were indigent students who, in consideration 
of their poverty and in exchange for menial service, were 
given food, drink, and lodging. 

At Pembroke Spenser found congenial society. The 
college had not yet acquired its literary traditions. It was 
long afterwards that it became the home of the poet 
Crashaw, and later still of the poet Gray. Spenser himself 
was the first poet, alike in point of time and of eminence, 
to associate his name with the foundation. But to contem- 






EDMUND SPENSER 161 

porary members of the college he owed much. A young 
Fellow of the College, Gabriel Harvey, an ardent but pedan- 
tic student of literature, took deep interest in him Q a b r i e i 
and greatly influenced his literary tastes. Harvey Harve y- 
reinforced in his pupil a passion for classical learning, which 
the boy had acquired at school, and encouraged him to pursue 
a study of French and Italian literature, to which on his 
own initiative he had already devoted his leisure. A young 
fellow-sizar, Edward Kirke, also became a warm admirer 
and stimulating friend. 

From a lad Spenser was a close student and a wide 
reader, and gave early promise of poetic eminence. He was 
attracted not merely by the classics, the orthodox jj ig ear ii est 
subject of study at school and college, but by verse - 
French and Italian literature. Almost as a school-boy he 
began to translate into English the poetry of France. Before 
he went to Cambridge he prepared for a London publisher 
metrical translations of poems by Du Bellay, a scholarly 
spirit of the Renaissance in France, and he also rendered into 
seven English sonnets an ode of Petrarch, the great Italian 
master of the sonnet, from the version of the early French 
poet Clement Marot. It was through his knowledge of 
French that the gate to the vast and varied literature of Italy 
opened to him. Both Petrarch's and Du Bellay 's verses 
described the uncertainties of human life and the fickleness 
of human fortune. Spenser's renderings were merely inserted 
by an indulgent publisher as letter-press to be attached to old 
woodcuts in his possession. Letter-press is a humiliating posi- 
tion for literature to fill, but the youth was content to get his 
first poetic endeavours into type in any conditions. Spenser's 
ambition at the time was satisfied when a tedious Dutch trea- 
tise of morality appeared in English with his earliest poems 
irrelevantly introduced as explanations of the pictorial illus- 

L 



162 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

trations that adorned the opening pages. The musical temper 
of Spenser's boyish verse augured well for a future, but no 
critic at the time discerned its potentiality. 

While an undergraduate Spenser suffered alike from 
poverty and ill-health. Small sums of money were granted 

His love for *° ^im as a P°° r scn °l ar from the old bequest 
Cambridge. wn { c h had benefited him at school, and he was 
often disabled by sickness. He remained however at Cam- 
bridge for the exceptionally long period of seven years. He 
took the degree of Master of Arts in 1576, and then left the 
University. He always speaks of Cambridge — of ' my mother 
Cambridge ' — with respect. He wrote in a well-known pas- 
sage of the Faerie Queene how the River Ouse which runs 
near Cambridge 

'doth by Huntingdon and Cambridge flit, — 
My mother Cambridge, whom as with a crown 
He [i.e. the river] doth adorn and is adorn'd of it 
With many a gentle muse and many a learned wit.' 1 

Spenser was himself in due time to adorn his Alma Mater 
' as with a crown ' by virtue of his ' gentle muse ' and ' learned 
wit.' 

m 

When Spenser's Cambridge life closed, he was no less 

than twenty- four years old. That was a mature age in those 

days for a man to be entering on a career, and 
Disappoint- 
ment in even then, owing to his feeble constitution, he 

seems to have been in no haste to seek a settle- 
ment. The omens were none too favourable. In poor health, 
without money or prospects, he apparently idled away another 
year with his kinsfolk, his cousins, in Lancashire. There, 

1 Faerie Queene, Bk. iv., canto xi., stanza xxxiv. 



EDMUND SPENSER %63 

having nothing better to do, he fell in love. The object of 
his affections was, we are told, a gentlewoman, of no mean 
house, ' endowed with no vulgar or common gifts of nature 
or manners.' But the lady disdained the poet's suit, and he 
sought consolation in verse. Antiquaries have tried to dis- 
cover the precise name of the lady, but, beyond the fact 
that she was the daughter of a Lancashire yeoman, nothing 
more needs saying of her. 

Spenser's failure in his amorous adventure was, despite 
the passing grief it caused him, beneficial. It stirred him 
to fresh exertions alike in poetry and the affairs settlement 
of the world. He resolved to seek in London ™ London. 
greater happiness than Lancashire offered him, and the means 
of earning an honourable livelihood. Gabriel Harvey, his 
Cambridge friend, strongly urged on him the prudence of 
seeking employment in the capital. Harvey prided himself 
on his influence in high circles. His activity at Cambridge 
made him known to all visitors of distinction to the Univer- 
sity. He knew the Queen's favourite, the Earl of Leicester, 
the uncle of Sir Philip Sidney, who had it in his power to ad- 
vance any aspirant to fortune. To Leicester Harvey gave 
Spenser an introduction. That introduction proved the true 
starting-point of Spenser's adult career. 

Like all Queen Elizabeth's courtiers Leicester had literary 

tastes. He was favourably impressed by the young poet 

and offered him secretarial emplovment. Spen- 

^ J r Thepatron- 

ser's duties required him to live at Leicester House, age of 

the Earl's great London mansion. Literary sym- 
pathies overcame, in Elizabethan England, class distinctions, 
and Spenser — the impecunious tailor's son — was suddenly 
thrown into close relations with fashionable London society- 
Many poor young men of ability and character owed all their 
opportunities in life to wealthy noblemen of the day. The 



164 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

friendly union between patron and poet often bred strong 
mutual affection and was held to confer honour on both. 
Spenser's relations with Leicester were of the typical kind. 
They were easy, amiable. The poet felt pride in the help 
and favour that the Earl bestowed on him, although he was 
not backward in pressing his claims to preferment. Spenser 
describes with ungrudging admiration Leicester's influential 
place in the State as 

'A mighty prince, of most renowned race, 
Whom England high in count of honour held, 
And greatest ones did sue to gain his grace; 
Of greatest ones he greatest in his place, 
Sate in the bosom of his sovereign, 
And " Right and Loyal," did his word maintain.' * 

Referring to his own relations with his patron, he exclaimed: 

'And who so else did goodness by him gain? 
And who so else his bounteous mind did try ?' 2 

Leicester stands to Spenser in precisely the same relation as 
the Earl of Southampton stands to Shakespeare. 

Spenser had at Leicester House much leisure for study. 
He wrote poems for his patron. He read largely for him- 
Secretarial self, presenting books to his friend Harvey, who 
work. gen j. Yiim others in return. But his office was no 

sinecure. He was sent abroad in behalf of his patron, usually 
as the bearer of despatches. In Leicester's service he paid a 
first visit to Ireland, and went on official errands to France, 
Spain, and Italy, notably to Rome, and even further afield. 
Foreign travel nurtured his imagination, and widened his 
knowledge of the literary efforts of French and Italian con- 
temporaries. 

Spenser's connection with Leicester brought him the ac- 

• Ruines of Time, 11. 184-89. 2 Ibid., 11, 232-33. 



EDMUND SPENSER 165 

quaintance of a more attractive personality — Leicester's 
fascinating nephew, Sir Philip Sidney. The ac- sir Philip 
quaintance rapidly ripened into a deep and tender Sldnev - 
friendship, and exerted an excellent influence, morally and 
intellectually, on both young men. 

Thus, in 1579, when Spenser was about twenty-seven 
years old, Fortune seemed to smile on him. He mixed 
freely with courtiers and politicians, and was in Harvey's 
close touch with all that was most enlightened in advice - 
London society. Amid such environment his poetic genius 
acquired new energy and confidence. He was ambitious to 
excel in all forms of literary composition, and he was in 
doubt which to essay first. He confided his perplexities to 
his friend and tutor Harvey. Harvey was a pedantic and 
shortsighted counsellor. He was no wise adviser of one 
endowed with great original genius which was best left to seek 
an independent course. Harvey's passion for the classics, 
and his absorption in the study of them, distorted his judg- 
ment. English poetry was in his mind a branch of classical 
scholarship. Hitherto the art of poetry had, in his opinion, 
been practised to best advantage by Latin writers. Conse- 
quently, English poetry, were it to attain perfection, ought 
to imitate Latin verse, alike in metre and ideas. Harvey's 
theory was based on a very obvious misconception. Poetry 
can only flourish if it be free to adapt itself to the idiosyn- 
crasy of the poet's mother-tongue. Accent, not quantity, is 
alone adaptable to poetry in the English language. English 
verse which ignores such considerations cannot reach the 
poetic level. 

Yet for a time Harvey's views prevailed with Spenser. 
He defied a great law of nature and of art, and xheclassi- 
did violence to his bent, in order to essay the calfallacv - 
hopeless task of naturalising in English verse metrical rules 



166 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

which the English language rejects. In the meetings of the 
literary club of the ' Areopagus ' which Leicester's friends 
and dependents formed at Leicester House, Spenser, Sidney, 
and others debated, at Harvey's instance, the application 
to English poetry of the classical rules of metrical quantity. 
Spenser joined the company in making many experiments in 
Latinised English verse, a few of which survive. The result 
was an uncouth sort of verbiage, lumbering or wallowing in 
harsh obscurity. Happily Spenser quickly perceived that 
no human power could fit the English language to classical 
metres; he saw the weakness of the pedantic arguments. 
It was well that he escaped the classicists' toils. It was 
needful that he should deliberately reject false notions of 
English verse before his genius could gain an open road. 

The first serious poetic efforts that Spenser designed in 
his adult years are lost, if they were ever completed. Soon 
Poetic ex- after he had settled at Leicester House, Spenser 
penments. told his friends he was penning nine comedies, to 
be called after the nine Muses, in the manner of the books of 
Herodotus's History. An account of his patron's family 
history and chief ancestors was also occupying his pen; frag- 
ments of this design, perhaps, survive in the elegy on his 
patron which he subsequently incorporated in his Ruines of 
Time. He seems to have sketched a lost prose work called 
The English Poet, an essay on literary criticism, which, like 
Sidney's Apologie for Poetrie, was intended to prove poetry 
(so a friend of Spenser reported) to be ' a divine gift and 
heavenly instinct not to be gotten by labour and learning, but 
adorned with both, and poured into the wit by a certain 
enthousiasmos and celestial inspiration.' 1 Spenser having 
cut himself adrift of pedantic classicism, adopted a view no 
less exalted than that of Shelley of the constituent elements 
1 Cf. Argument before The Shepheards Calender, Eclogue x. 



EDMUND SPENSER 167 

of genuine poetry. Even more important is it to note that 
Spenser had found the form of poetic speech, at this early 
epoch, which best suited his ethical and artistic temper. His 
ambitious allegorical epic or moral romance, which he called 
the Faerie Queene, dates from the outset of his literary career. 
He sent some portion to Harvey as early as the autumn of 
1579, at the moment when he was recanting his tutor's classi- 
cal heresy. Harvey was naturally not impressed by a project 
which he had not advised, and which ignored or defied his 
pedantic principles of poetic art. The design was in Har- 
vey's eyes an unwarranted innovation, a deflection from tried 
and well-trodden paths. Spenser was not encouraged by 
Harvey to hurry on. The discouragement had some effect. 
Ten years elapsed before any portion of the poem was sent 
to press. Spenser was shy and sensitive by nature. He 
could not ignore critical censure. But happily other friends, 
of better judgment than Harvey, urged him to persevere. 



IV 

Spenser's ascent of Parnassus was not greatly prejudiced 
by Harvey's misleading counsel. Temporarily abandoning 

the Faerie Queene, he turned to work for which 

' The Shep- 

precedent was more abundant. He completed and heards 

Calender. 

caused to be printed, before the close of 1579 — 
a year very eventful in his career — a poem which left enlight- 
ened critics in no doubt of his powers. 

Spenser's first extant poem of length, which he called The 
Shepheards Calender, consisted of twelve dialogues Its f ore i gn 
or eclogues spoken in dialogue by shepherds, one mode s - 
for every month of the year. The design of the volume 
followed foreign models of acknowledged repute. Greek 
pastoral poetry of Theocritus and Bion was its foundation, 



168 GREAT ENGLISHMEN" 

modified by study of Virgil's Eclogues and of many French 
and Italian examples of more recent date. Mantuanus and 
Sanazzaro among Italian poets, and Clement Marot among 
Frenchmen, commanded Spenser's full allegiance. The title 
was borrowed from an English translation in current use 
of a popular French Almanac known as Kalendrier des 
Bergers, and the debt to Marot's French eclogues is especi- 
ally large. The names of the speakers Thenot and Colin are 
of Marot's invention, and in two of the eclogues Spenser con- 
fines himself to adaptation of Marot's verse. Everywhere 
he gives proof of reading and respect for authority. His 
friends freely acknowledged that he piously ' followed the 
footing ' of the excellent poets of Greece, Rome, France, and 
Italy. 

It was not only abroad that Spenser's genius sought 
sustenance. Although he was fascinated by the varied 
charms of foreign literary effort, he was not oblivious of the 
literary achievement of his own country. English poetry 
had not of late progressed at the same rate as the poetry of 
Italy or France. But a poetic tradition had come into being 
in fourteenth-century England. Spenser was attracted by it, 
and he believed himself capable of continuing it. He was 
eager to enrol himself under the banner of the greatest of 
Eulogy of n * s English predecessors, of Chaucer. By way of 
Chaucer. proving the sincerity of his patriotic allegiance, he 
took toll openly of the English poet, even exaggerating the 
extent of his indebtedness. 1 His direct eulogy of Chaucer 
under the name of Tityrus is a splendid declaration of 
homage on the younger poet's part to the old master of 
English poetry. 

'In Eclogue n. (February) Spenser pretends to quote from Chaucer the 
fable of the oak and the briar. The alleged quotation seems to be entirely of 
Spenser's invention. 



EDMUND SPENSER 169 

'The God of Shepherds, Tityrus, is dead, 
Who taught me homely, as I can, to make; 
He, whilst he lived, was the sovereign head 
Of shepherds all that bene with love ytake; 
Well couth he wail his woes, and lightly slake 
The flames which love within his heart had bred, 
And tell us merry tales to keep us wake, 
The while our sheep about us safely fed. 

Now dead is he, and lieth wrapt in lead, 

(O ! why should death on him such outrage show !) 

And all his passing skill with him is fled 

The fame whereof doth daily greater grow. 

But if on me some little drops would flow 

Of that the spring was in his learned head, 

I soon would learn these woods to wail my woe, 

And teach the trees their trickling tears to shed.' 1 

No poem of supreme worth ever crept into the world more 
modestly or made larger avowal of obligation to poetry of the 
past than The Shepheards Calender. Spenser, The cr iti C a.l 
who merely claimed to be trying his ' tender a PP aratus - 
wings ' in strict accord with precedent, hesitated to announce 
himself as the author. The book was inscribed anonymously 
on its title-page to his friend Sir Philip Sidney, and in a 
little prefatory poem which he characteristically signed ' Im- 
merito,' he fitly entitles his patron ' the president of noblesse 
and chivalry.' A college friend, Edward Kirke, emphasised 
the work's dependence on the ancient ways in a dedicatory 
epistle to the scholar Gabriel Harvey; and the same hand 
liberally scattered through the volume notes and glosses, 
which emphasised the poet's loans from the accepted masters 
of his craft. Owing to Spenser's anxiety to link himself to 
the latest period — remote as it was — when English poetry 
had conspicuously flourished, the vocabulary was deliberately 

1 The Shepheards Calender, June, lines 81-96. 



170 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

archaic. Foreign examples justified such procedure. Kirke 
explained that, after the manner of the Greek pastoral poets 
who affected the rustic Doric dialect, Spenser ' laboured to 
restore as to their rightful heritage such good and natural 
English words as had been long time out of use and clean 
disinherited.' 

Kirk's sincere enthusiasm for his author neutralises the 
prejudice which lovers of poetry commonly cherish against 
officious editorial comment. He justifies his intervention 
between reader and author on the somewhat equivocal ground 
that although Spenser was an imitator, his imitations were 
often so devised that only ' such as were (like his editor) well 
scented ' in the hunt after foreign originals could ' trace 
them out.' 

But the range of topics of The Shepheards Calender 
suggests to the least observant reader that there is exag- 
geration in the editor's repeated denial of the 
The topics. ° f r 

poet's ability to walk alone or to strike out new 

paths for himself. Spenser naturally pursues the old pas- 
toral roads in discoursing of the pangs of despised love of 
which he had had his own experience, of the woes of age and 
of the joys of youth; but there is individuality in his treat- 
ment of the well-worn themes, and he does not confine him- 
self to them. In his contrasts between the virtues of Protes- 
tantism and the vices of Popery he handles problems of 
theology which his poetic predecessors had not essayed. The 
interlocutors are the poet himself and his friends and patron 
under disguised names, and he does not repress his private 
sentiments or idiosyncrasies. Of his personal beliefs he 
makes impressive confession in his tenth eclogue, in which 
he ' complaineth of the contempt of poetry and the causes 
thereof.' Theocritus and Mantuanus had already condemned 
monarchs and statesmen for failure to respect the votaries 



EDMUND SPENSER 171 

of ' peerless poesy.' Spenser followed in their wake, but 
the ardour with which he pleads the poet's cause is his own, 
and the argument had never before been couched in finer 
harmonies. 

Despite its large dependence on earlier literary effort, the 
value of The Shepheards Calender lies ultimately not (as 
its editor would have us believe) in the dexterity its true 
of its adaptations, but in the proof it offers of value - 
the original calibre of Spenser's poetic genius. Historically 
important as it is for the student and critic to note and to 
define what a poet takes from others, of greater importance 
is it for them to note and to define what a poet makes of 
his borrowings. In the first place, The Shepheards Calender 
shows a faculty for musical modulation of words, of which 
only the greatest practisers of the poetic art are capable. 
It is a peculiar quality of Spenser's power to manipulate 
the metre so that it moves as the sense dictates, now slowly 
and solemnly, now quickly and joyfully. In the second place, 
the thought is clothed in a picturesque simplicity, which is 
the fruit of the poet's personality. The life and truthfulness 
of the pictures are the outcome of the poet's individual 
affinities with the poetic aspects of nature and humanity. 

Since the death of Chaucer no poet of a distinction similar 

to that of Spenser had come to light in England. The 

Shepheards Calender was not without signs of im- 

r & Its place 

maturity ; the melodies of the verse were inter- in English 

poetry, 
rupted by awkward dissonances and by feeble or 

discordant phrases. But its merits far outdistanced its de- 
fects and it worthily inaugurated a new era of English poetry. 
It proved beyond risk of denial that there had arisen a poet 
of genius fit to rank above all preceding English poets save 
only Chaucer, who died nearly two centuries before. It is to 
the credit of the age that this great fact, despite editorial 



172 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

endeavours to disguise it, was straightway recognised. ' He 
may well wear the garland and step before the best of all 
English poets that I have seen or heard/ wrote one early 
reader of The Shepheards Calender. Drayton, the reputed 
friend of Shakespeare, declared that ' Master Edmund Spen- 
ser had done enough for the immortality of his name had 
he only given us his The Shepheards Calender, a masterpiece 
if any.' Masterpieces had been scarce in English literature 
since Chaucer produced his Canterbury Tales. 



Elizabethan poetry brought its makers honourable recog- 
nition, but it did not bring them pecuniary reward. Spenser 
The poet's na ^ entered Leicester's service in order to obtain 
^£™P ain an office which should produce a regular revenue, 
patron. But, as the months went on, Spenser suffered dis- 

appointment at his patron's hands. Leicester was not as 
zealous in the poet's interest as the poet hoped. The services 
which he rendered his patron seemed to him to be inade- 
quately recognised. He expected more from his master than 
board and lodging. His dissatisfaction found vent in a 
rendering of the poem called ' Virgil's Gnat.' 

'Wronged, yet not daring to express my pain,' 

the poet dedicated the apologue to his ' excellent ' lord ' the 
causer of my care.' He likened himself to the gnat, which, 
in the poem, rouses a sleeping shepherd to repel a serpent's 
attack by stinging his eyelid, and then is thoughtlessly 
brushed aside and slain by him whom the insect delivers from 
peril. 

Spenser probably wrote in a moment of temporary annoy- 



EDMUND SPENSER 173 

ance, and exaggerated the injury done him by the Earl. 
Happily a change of fortune was at hand, and his irritation 
with Leicester passed away. Although there is no Qgj c j a i 
reason for regarding the sequence of events as P romotl on. 
other than an accidental coincidence, it was within six months 
of the publication of The Shepheards Calender, that the 
poet was offered a remunerative and responsible post. He 
accepted the office of secretary to a newly-appointed Lord 
Deputy of Ireland, and the course of his life was completely 
changed. 

In the summer of 1580 Spenser left England practically 
for good. Though he thrice revisited his native land, 
Ireland was his home for his remaining nineteen Migration 
years of life. At the outset he accepted the post to Ireland - 
in the faith that it would prove a stepping-stone to high 
political office in England. Permanent exile he never con- 
templated with complacency. London was his native place 
and the seat of government, and it was his ambition to enjoy 
there profitable and dignified employment. But this was 
not to be, and as his prospect of preferment grew dim, his 
spirit engendered an irremovable melancholy and discontent. 
He bewailed his unhappy fate with the long-drawn bitterness 
of Ovid among the Scythians. He declared himself to be a 
' forlorn wight ' who was banished to a ' waste,' and there 
was ' quite forgot.' 

Sixteenth-century Ireland had few attractions for an 
English poet. The country was torn asunder by internecine 
strife. The native Irish were in perpetual revolt r rhe Irish 
against their English rulers. The Spaniards, P roblem - 
anxious to injure England at every point, were ready to fan 
Irish disaffection, and were always threatening to send ships 
and men to encourage active rebellion. The air was infected 
by barbarous cruelty, by suffering and poverty. To Spen- 



174 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

ser's gentle and beauty-loving nature, violence and pain were 
abhorrent, but he had no chance of escape from the hateful 
environment, and familiarity with the sordid scenes had the 
natural effect of dulling, even in his sensitive brain, the 
active sense of repulsion to its worst evils. Though he never 
reconciled himself to the conditions of Irish life or govern- 
ment, and vaguely hoped for mitigation of their horrors, he 
assimilated the views of the governing class to which he 
belonged, and became an advocate of the coercion of the 
natives to whose wrongs he gave no attentive ear. 

Self-interest, too, insensibly moulded his political views. 

Having entered the official circle in Ireland, he eagerly 

sought opportunities of improving his material 

friends fortunes. He yearned for the rewards of political 

in Ireland. . , , 

life in England, but he came to realise that if 

those prizes were beyond his reach, he must accommodate 
himself to the more limited scope of advancement in Ireland. 
There he met with moderate success. He was quickly the 
recipient of many profitable posts in Dublin, which he held 
together with his secretaryship to the Lord Deputy. He was 
also granted much land, in accordance with the English 
policy, which encouraged English settlers in Ireland. Hap- 
pily, there was some worthier mitigation of his lot. His 
official colleagues included come congenial companions whose 
sympathy with his literary ambitions went some way to 
counteract the griefs of his Irish experience. In Lord Grey, 
his Chief, the governor of the country, Spenser found 
one who inspired him with affection and respect. To 
Lord Grey's nobility of nature the poet paid splendid 
tribute in his description of Sir Artegal, the knight of 
justice in the Faerie Queene (book iv. canto ii.). A humbler 
colleague, Lodowick Bryskett, was a zealous lover of litera- 
ture; he occupied a little cottage near Dublin, and often 



EDMUND SPENSER 175 

invited Spenser and others to engage there in literary debate. 
There the poet talked with engaging frankness and modesty 
of his literary ambitions and plans. 

Spenser's temperament was prone to seek the guidance 
and countenance of others. It was fortunate that Ireland 
did not withhold from him the encouragement which was 
needful to stimulate poetic exertion. It was not likely that 
the poetic impulse would be conquered by his migration, 
but in the absence of sympathetic companions its activity 
would doubtless have slackened, and he would have wanted 
the confidence to give to the world its fruits. As things 
turned out, his enthusiasm for his art increased rather than 
diminished in his retirement. Literary composition provided 
congenial relief from the routine work of his office. At the 
entreaty of his friends, he took up again his great work 
the Faerie Queene, with its scene laid in an imag- His poet j c 
inary fairyland, to which the poetic humour could exertlons - 
carry him from any point of the earth's surface. At the 
same time he made many slighter excursions in verse, of 
which the most beautiful was his lament for the premature 
death of his friend and patron, Sir Philip Sidney. No 
sweeter imagery ever adorned an elegy than that to be met 
with in Spenser's ' Astrophel, a pastorall Elegie upon the 
death of the most noble and valorous knight Sir Philip 
Sidney.' His brain could summon at will ethereal visions 
which the sordid environment of his Irish career could neither 
erase nor blur. He was no careless pleasure-seeking official; 
he did his official work thoroughly, although not brilliantly. 
There was strange contrast between the poet's official duties 
and the intellectual and spiritual aspirations which filled his 
brain while he laboured at the official oar. 



176 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



VI 

After eight years, Spenser left Dublin to take up a new 

and more dignified post in the south of Ireland. He was 

made clerk of the Council of Munster, the south- 
Removal to 

the south ern province, a prosaic office for which poetic 
of Ireland. 

genius was small qualification. He took active 
part in the work of planting or colonising with Englishmen 
untenanted land, or land from which native holders were 
evicted. Spenser thought it perfectly just to evict the 
natives ; it is doubtful if he saw any crime in exterminating 
them. New tracts of land were given him by way of en- 
couragement in the neighbourhood of Cork. He took up his 
residence in the old castle of Kilcolman, three miles from 
Doneraile, in County Cork. It was surrounded by woodland 
scenery, and the prospect was as soothing to the human brain 
as any that a poet could wish. The house is now an ivy- 
covered ruin, while the surrounding scenery has gained in 
fulness and in richness of aspect. 

But the beauty of nature brought to Spenser in Ireland 
little content or happiness. It was on his management of 

' the world of living men,' not on a placid survey 
Quarrels 

with of ' wood and stream and field and hill and ocean ' 

neighbours. t-ittii 

that his material welfare depended. He had not 
the tact and social diplomacy needful for the maintenance of 
harmony with his rude, semi-civilised neighbours. With the 
landlords of estates contiguous to his own he was con- 
stantly engaged in litigation, and was often under dread of 
physical conflict. 

Nevertheless, one source of relief from the anxieties and 
annoyances of official life was present in County Cork as in 



EDMUND SPENSER 177 

County Dublin. Fortune again gave him a companion who 
could offer him welcome encouragement in the practice of his 
poetic art. 

When Spenser pitched his tent in the south of Ireland, 
there was there another English settler who was notably 
imbued with literary tastes in some way akin to si r Walter 
his own. Sir Walter Ralegh was living at his Ralegh, 
house on the Blackwater in temporary retirement from 
political storms across the Irish Channel. He quickly made 
his way to Kilcolman Castle. Spenser was cheered in his 
desolation by a visitor whose literary enthusiasm was proof 
against every vicissitude of fortune. With Ralegh's inspiring 
voice ringing in his ear, Spenser's Faerie Queene progressed 
apace. Spenser recognised, too, Ralegh's own poetic power, 
and he stirred his neighbour to address himself also to the 
Muse in friendly rivalry. Of his meetings with Ralegh in 
the fastnesses of Southern Ireland, and of their poetic 
contests, Spenser wrote with simple beauty thus: — 

'A strange shepherd chanced to find me out, 
Whether allured with my pipes delight, 
Whose pleasing sound yshrilled far about, 
Or thither led by chance, I know not right; 
Whom, when I asked from what place he came, 
And how he hight, himself he did ycleepe 
The Shepherd of the Ocean by name, 
And said he came far from the main-sea deep. 
He, sitting me beside in that same shade, 
Provoked me to play some pleasant fit; 
And when he heard the music which I made, 
He found himself full greatly pleased at it: 
Yet aemuling l my pipe, he took in hond 
My pipe, before that aemuled 2 of many, 

1 rivalling. 2 rivalled. 



178 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

And played thereon; (for well that skill he cond); 

Himself as skilful in that art as any. 

He pip'd, I sung; and, when he sung, I piped; 

By change of turns, each making other merry; 

Neither envying other, nor envied, 

So piped we until we both were weary.' l 

It was at Ralegh's persuasion that Spenser, having com- 
pleted three books of his Faerie Queene, took the resolve to 
London visit London once more. At Ralegh's persuasion 

revisited. ne SOU ght to arrange for the publication of his 
ambitious venture. His fame as author of The Shepheards 
Calender still ran high, and a leader of the publishing frater- 
nity, William Ponsonby, was eager to undertake the volume. 
The negotiation rapidly issued in the appearance of the first 
three books of Spenser's epic allegory under Ponsonby's 
auspices early in 1590. 

Ralegh, to whom the author addressed a prefatory letter 
' expounding his whole intention in the course of this work,' 
had filled the poet with hope that the highest power in the 
land, the Queen herself, ' whose grace was great and bounty 
most rewardful,' would interest herself in so noble an under- 
taking. With the loyalty characteristic of the time, the poet 
Itsdedica- na ^ ma de his virgin sovereign a chief heroine of 
Queen* ^is P oem - To ner accordingly he dedicated the 

Elizabeth. work in words of dignified brevity. The dedica- 
tion ran : — ' To the most high, mighty, and magnificent 
Empress, renowned for piety, virtue, and all gracious gov- 
ernment. . . . Her most humble servant, Edmund Spenser, 
doth in all humility dedicate, present, and consecrate these his 
labours, to live with the eternity of her fame.' But it was 
not the Queen alone among great personages who could, if 
well disposed, benefit his material fortunes and restore him 

1 Colin Clouts come home againe, 11. 60-79. 



EDMUND SPENSER 179 

in permanence to his native English soil. The poet was 

urged by friendly advisers to enlist the interest of all leading 

men and women in his undertaking. In seventeen prefatory 

sonnets he saluted as a suppliant for their favour as many 

high officers or ladies of the Court. 

The reception accorded to the first published instalment 

of the Faerie Queene gave Spenser no ground for regret. 

Among lovers of poetrv the book attained instant „ 

& r J _ Reception 

success. The first three books of the Faerie of the 

Faerie 

Queene dispelled all surviving doubt that Spenser Queene, 

. . . bks. i.-iii. 

was, in point of time, the greatest poet (after 

Chaucer) in the English language; and there were many who 
judged the later poet to be in merit the equal if not the 
superior of the earlier. 

In the Faerie Queene Spenser broke new ground. It was 
not of the category to which Spenser's earlier effort The Shep- 
heards Calender belonged. Since the earlier vol- j ts advance 
ume appeared more than ten years had passed, sh ep htards 
and Spenser's hand had grown in confidence and Calender. 
cunning. His thought had matured, his intellectual interests 
had grown, till they embraced well-nigh the whole expanse 
of human endeavour. His genius, his poetic capacity, had 
now ripened. At length a long-sustained effort of exalted 
aim lay well within his scope. As in the case of The Shep- 
heards Calender Spenser deprecated originality of design. 
With native modesty he announced on the threshold his disci- 
pleship to Homer and Virgil, and to Ariosto and Tasso. It 
was an honest and just announcement. Many an episode 
and much of his diction came from the epic poems of Achilles 
and iEneas, or of Orlando and Rinaldo. But all his 
borrowings were fused with his own invention by the fire of 
his brain, and the final scheme was the original fruit of indi- 
vidual genius. Spenser's main purpose was to teach virtue, to 



180 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

instruct men in the conduct of life, to expound allegorically a 
system of moral philosophy. But with a lavish hand he shed 
over his ethical teaching the splendour of great poetry, and it 
is by virtue of that allurement that his endeavour won its 
triumph. 

VII 

Spenser was ill content with mere verbal recognition of 
the eminence of his poetic achievement. His presence in 
A suitor London was not only planned in order to publish 

for office. ^ie Faerie Queene, and to enjoy the applause of 
critics near at hand. It was also designed to win official 
preferment, to gain a more congenial means of livelihood 
that»\was open to him in Ireland, a home ' unmeet for man in 
whom was aught regardful.' To secure this end he spared 
no effort. He cared little for his self-respect provided he 
could strengthen his chances of victory. He submitted to 
all the tedious and degrading routine which was incumbent on 
suitors for court office; he patiently suffered rebuffs and 
disappointments, delays and the indecision of patrons. Some 
measure of success rewarded his persistency. Ralegh, who 
enjoyed for the time Queen Elizabeth's favour, worked hard 
in his friend's behalf. The Queen was not indifferent to the 
compliments Spenser had paid her in his great poem. Great 
ladies were gratified by the poetic eulogies he offered them in 
occasional verse. In the exalted ranks of society his reputa- 
tion as an unapproached master of his art grew steadily. 

A general willingness manifested itself favourably to re- 
spond to the plaintive petitions of a poet so richly endowed. 
The grant -^ pension was suggested. The Queen herself, 
of a pension, ^g rumour we nt, accepted the suggestion with 
alacrity, and calling the attention of her Lord Treasurer, Lord 
Burghley, to it, bade him be generous. She named a sum 
which was deemed by her adviser excessive. Finally Spenser 



EDMUND SPENSER 181 

was allotted a State-paid income of fifty pounds a year. The 
amount was large at a time when the purchasing power of 
money was eight times what it is now, and the bestowal of it 
gave him such prestige as recognition by the crown invariably 
confers on a poet, although it did not give Spenser the formal 
title of poet-laureate. 

But Spenser was unsatisfied; he resented and never for- 
gave the attitude of Lord Burghley, who, like most practical 
statesmen, looked with suspicion on poets when The return 
they sought political posts : he had no enthusiasm to Ireiand - 
for amateurs in political office, nor did he approve of the 
appropriation of public money to the encouragement of 
literary genius. The net result left Spenser's position un- 
changed. The pension was not large enough to justify him 
in abandoning work in Ireland. England offered him no 
asylum. He recrossed the Irish Channel to resume his office 
as Clerk of the Council of Munster. 

At home in Ireland, Spenser reviewed his fortunes in 
despair. With feeling he wrote in his poem called His despair 

of his 

Mother Hubberds Tale: — fortunes. 

'Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried, 
What hell it is, in suing long to bide: 
To lose good days, that might be better spent; 
To waste long nights in pensive discontent; 
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; 
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow, 
To have thy Prince's grace, yet want her Peers; 
To have thy asking, yet wait many years; 
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares; 
To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs; 
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run, 
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone. 
Unhappy wight, born to disastrous end, 
That doth his life in so long tendance spend!' ' 
1 Spenser's Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubberds Tale, 11. 896-909. 



182 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

On a second poem of the same date and on the same theme 
he bestowed the ironical title Colin Clouts come home againe 
(Colin Clout was a nick-name which it amused him to give 
himself). Colin Clout is as charming and simple an essay in 
autobiography as fell from any poet's pen. He recalls the 
details of his recent experience in London with charming 
naivete, and dwells with generous enthusiasm on the favours 
and ' sundry good turns,' which he owed to his neighbour 
Sir Walter Ralegh. He sent the manuscript of Colin Clout 
to Ralegh, and, although it was not printed till 1595, it 
soon passed from hand to hand. Elsewhere in another occa- 
sional poem, The Ruines of Time, which mainly lamented the 
death of his first patron Leicester and of that patron's 
brother the Earl of Warwick, he avenged himself in a more 
strident note on Lord Burghley's cynical indifference to his 
need. 

All the leisure that his official duties left him he now 
devoted to poetry. He committed to verse all his thought. 
He was no longer reticent, and sent copies of his poems in 
all directions. Quickly he came before the public as author 
Complaints °^ an other volume of verse possessing high auto- 
1590. biographical attraction. This was a characteristic 

venture of the publisher Ponsonby, and with its actual pre- 
paration for the press the poet was not directly concerned. 
Scattered poems by Spenser were circulating in manuscript 
from hand to hand. These the publisher, Ponsonby, brought 
together under the title of Complaints, without distinct 
authority from the author. The book seems to have contained 
compositions of various dates; some belonged to early years, 
but the majority were very recent. To the recent work 
belongs one of Spenser's most characteristic, and most mature 
poetic efforts, the poem of ' Muiopotmos.' That poem is the 
airiest of fancies treated with marvellous delicacy and 



EDMUND SPENSER 183 

vivacity. It tells the trivial story of a butterfly swept by a 
gust of wind into a spider's web. But the picturesque por- 
trayal of the butterfly's careless passage through the air, 
and of his revellings in all the delights of nature, breathes 
the purest spirit of simple and sensuous poetry. 

' Over the fields, in his frank lustiness, 
And all the champain o'er, he soared light, 
And all the country wide he did possess, 
Feeding upon their pleasures bounteously, 
That none gainsaid and none did him envy.' 

It is difficult to refuse assent to the interpretation of the 
poem which detects in the butterfly's joyous career on ' his 
aircutting wings,' and his final and fatal entanglement in the 
grisly tyrant's den, a figurative reflection of the poet's own 
experiences. 

VIII 

A change was imminent in Spenser's private life. Once 
more he contemplated marriage. He paid his addresses to 
the daughter of a neighbouring landlord. Her The poet's 
father, James Boyle, was the kinsman of a great mama g e - 
magnate of the south of Ireland, Richard Boyle, who was 
to be created at a later period Earl of Cork. 

It was in accord with the fashion of the time, that 
Spenser, under the new sway of the winged god, should 
interrupt the poetic labours on which he had already 
entered, to pen, in honour of his wished-for bride, a long 
sequence of sonnets. Spenser's sonnets, which he Hig 
entitled Amoretti, do not rank very high among Amorett ' t " 
his poetic compositions. Like those of most of his contem- 
poraries, they reflect his wide reading in the similar work 
of French and Italian contemporaries to a larger extent than 



184 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

his own individuality. Although a personal experience im- 
pelled him to the enterprise, it is only with serious qualifica- 
tions that Spenser's sequence of sonnets can be regarded as 
autobiographic confessions. 1 In his hands, as in the hands 
of Sidney and Daniel, the sonnet was a poetic instrument 
whereon he sought to repeat in his mother tongue, with very 
vague reference to his personal circumstances, the notes of 
amorous feeling and diction which earlier poets of Italy and 
France had already made their own. The sonnet, which was 
a wholly foreign form of poetry, and came direct to Eliza- 
bethan England from the Continent of Europe, had an in- 
herent attraction for Spenser throughout his career. His 
earliest literary efforts were two small collections of sonnets, 
renderings respectively of French sonnets by Du Bellay and 
Marot's French translation of an ode of Petrarch. His 
Amoretti prove that in his maturer years he had fully main- 
tained his early affection for French and Italian sonneteers. 
He had indeed greatly extended his acquaintance among 
them. The influence of Petrarch and Du Bellay was now 
rivalled by the influence of Tasso and Desportes. 2 At times 
Spenser is content with literal translation of these two for- 



1 Spenser makes only three distinctly autobiographical statements in his 
sonnets. Sonnet xxxiii. is addressed by name to his friend Lodowick 
Bryskett, and is an apology for the poet's delay in completing his Faerie 
Queene. In sonnet lx. Spenser states that he is forty-one years old, and 
that one year has passed since he came under the influence of the winged 
god. Sonnet lxxiv. apostrophises the 'happy letters' which comprise the 
name Elizabeth, which he states was borne alike by his mother, his sove- 
reign, and his wife, Elizabeth Boyle. 

'Ye three Elizabeths! for ever live, 
That three such graces did unto me give.' 

Here Spenser seems to be following a hint offered him by Tasso, who ad- 
dressed a sonnet to three benefactresses ('Tre gran donne') all named 
Leonora. — (Tasso, Rime, Venice, 1583, vol. i. p. 39.) 

2 See Elizabethan Sonnets, vol. i. pp. xcii.-xcix. (introd.), edited by the 



EDMUND SPENSER 185 

eign masters; very occasionally does he altogether escape 
from their toils. Where he avoids literal dependence, he 
commonly adopts foreign words and ideas too closely to give 
his individuality complete freedom. Only three or four times 
does he break loose from the foreign chains and reveal in his 
sonnet sequence the full force of his great genius. For the 
most part the Amoretti reproduce the hollow prettiness and 
cloying sweetness of French and Italian conceits with little 
of the English poet's distinctive charm. 

But if sincerity and originality are slenderly represented 
in the sonnets, neither of these qualities is wanting to the 
great ode which was published with them. There The Z?m- 
Spenser with an engaging frankness betrayed the thalar "-i»n. 
elation of spirit which came of his courtship and marriage. 
In this Epithalamion, with which he celebrated his wedding, 

present writer. The following is a good example of Spenser's dependence 
on Tasso. Nine lines of Tasso's sonnet are literally translated by Spenser: — 
'Fair is my love, when her fair golden hairs 

With the loose wind ye waving chance to mark; 

Fair, when the rose in her red cheeks appears, 

Or in her eyes the fire of love doth spark. . . . 

But fairest she, when so she doth display 

The gate with pearls and rubies richly dight; 

Through which her words so wise do make their way, 

To bear the message of her gentle spright.' 

(Spenser, Amoretti, Ixxxi.) 

' Bella e la donna mia, se dal bel crine, 

L'oro al vento ondeggiare avien, che miri; 

Bella se volger gli occhi in dolci giri 

O le rose fiorir tra la sue brine. . . . 
Ma quella, ch'apre un dolce labro, e serra 

Porta di bei rubin si dolcemente, 

E belta sovra ogn' altra altera, ed alma. 
Porta gentil de la pregion de l'alma, 

Onde i messi d'amor escon sovente.' 

(Tasso, Rime, Venice, 1585, vol. iii. p. 17 b.) 

Spenser's fidelity as a translator does not permit him to omit even Tasso's 
pleonastic 'che miri' (line 2), which he renders quite literally by 'ye chance 
to mark.' 



186 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

his lyrical powers found full scope, and the ode takes rank 
with the greatest of English lyrics. The refined tone does 
not ignore any essential facts, but every touch subserves the 
purposes of purity and brings into prominence the spiritual 
beauty of the nuptial tie. Of the fascination of his bride he 
writes in lines like these: — 

'But if ye saw that which no eyes can see, 
The inward beauty of her lively spright, 
Garnished with heavenly gifts of high degree, 
Much more then would you wonder at that sight, 
And stand astonished like to those which red 
Medusa's mazeful head. 

There dwells sweet love, and constant chastity, 
Unspotted faith, and comely womanhood, 
Regard of honour, and mild modesty; 
There virtue reigns as queen in royal throne, 
And giveth laws alone, 
The which the base affections do obey, 
And yield their services unto her will ; 
Ne thought of thing uncomely ever may 
Thereto approach to tempt her mind to ill. 
Had ye once seen these her celestial treasures, 
And unrevealed pleasures, 
Then would ye wonder, and her praises sing, 
That all the woods should answer, and your echo ring.' l 

Spenser deferred marriage to so mature an age as forty- 
two. His great achievements in poetry were then com- 
pleted. Before his marriage he had finished the 
The Faerie r & 

Queene last three completed books of his Faerie Queene; 

continued. 

a fragment of a seventh book survives of uncer- 
tain date, but it probably belongs to the poet's pre-nuptial 
career. After his marriage, his first practical business was 
to revisit London and superintend the printing of the three 
last completed books of his great allegory. 
» Epithalamion, 11. 185-203. 



EDMUND SPENSER 187 

Five years had passed since his last sojourn in England, 
and his welcome was not all that he could wish. In diplo- 
matic circles he found himself an object of sus- Political 
picion. James vi., the King of Scotland, himself dlfficulties - 
a poet and a reader of poetry, had lately detected in Duessa, 
the deceitful witch of Spenser's great poem, an ill-disguised 
portrait of his own mother, Mary, Queen of Scots. Official 
complaint had been made to the English Government, and 
a request preferred for the punishment of the offending poet. 
The controversy went no further and Spenser was unharmed, 
but the older politicians complained privately of his indis- 
cretion, and Burghley's cynical scorn seemed justified. 

The fashionable nobility, however, only recognised his 
glorious poetic gifts and their enthusiasm was undiminished. 
Spenser followed the Court with persistence. He 
was a visitor at the Queen's palace at Greenwich of Essex's 
where Shakespeare had acted in the royal pres- 
ence two seasons before. Especially promising was the 
reception accorded him by the Queen's latest favourite, the 
Earl of Essex, a sincere lover of the arts and of artists, but 
of too impetuous a temperament to exert genuine influence 
at Court in behalf of a protege. Spenser was the Earl's 
guest at Essex House in the Strand. The mansion was 
already familiar to the poet, for it had been in earlier years 
the residence of the Earl of Leicester, the poet's first patron, 
and Essex's predecessor in the regard of his sovereign. 
Spenser rejoiced in the renewed hospitality the familiar roof 
offered him. Of his presence in Essex House, he left a 
memorial of high literary interest. It was in honour of two 
noble ladies, daughters of the Earl of Worcester, who were 
married from Essex House in November 1596, that Spenser 
penned the latest of his poems and one that embodied the 
quintessence of his lyric gift. His ' Prothalamion or a 



188 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

spousal verse, in honour of the double marriage of two 
honourable and virtuous ladies,' was hardly a whit inferior to 
his recent Epithalamion. Its far-famed refrain: 

* Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,' 

sounds indeed a sweeter note than the refrain of answering 
woods and ringing echoes in the earlier ode. It leaves an 
ineffaceable impression of musical grace and simplicity. It 
was Spenser's fit farewell to his Muse. 

It was not poetry that occupied Spenser's main atten- 
tion during this visit to London. Again his chief concern 

was the search for more lucrative employment 
His prose 
tract on than Ireland was offering him, and in this quest 

he met with smaller encouragement than before. 
With a view to proving his political sagacity and his fitness 
for political work, he now indeed abandoned with his Pro- 
thalamion poetry altogether. Much of his time in London 
he devoted to describing and criticising the existing condition 
of the country of Ireland where his life was unwillingly 
passed. He wrote dialogue-wise a prose treatise which he 
called ' A view of the present state of Ireland.' It was first 
circulated in manuscript, and was not published in Spenser's 
lifetime. Despite many picturesque passages, and an attrac- 
tive flow of colloquy, it is not the work that one would expect 
from a great poet at the zenith of his powers. For the most 
part Spenser's ' View ' is a political pamphlet, showing a 
narrow political temper and lack of magnanimity. The 
argument is a mere echo of the hopeless and helpless preju- 
dices which infected the English governing class. Despair 
of Ireland's political and social future is the dominant note. 
' Marry, see there have been divers good plots devised and 
wise counsels cast already about reformation of that realm; 
but they say it is the fatal destiny of that land, that no pur- 



EDMUND SPENSER 189 

poses, whatsoever are meant for her good, will prosper or 
take good effect, which whether it proceed from the very 
Genius of the soil, or influence of the stars, or that Almighty 
God hath not yet appointed the time of her reformation, or 
that he reserveth her in this unquiet state still for some 
secret scourge, which shall by her come unto England, it is 
hard to be known, but yet much to be feared.' 

The poet failed to recognise any justice in the claims of 
Irish nationality; English law was to be forced on Irishmen; 
Irish nationality was to be suppressed (if need Hispre- 
be) at the point of the sword. Spenser's avowed gainst the 
want of charity long caused in the native popula- Iristl - 
tion abhorrence of his name. But while condemning Irish 
character and customs, Spenser was enlightened enough to 
perceive defects in English methods of governing Ireland. 
He deplored the ignorance and degradation of the Protestant 
clergy there, and the unreadiness of the new settlers to take 
advantage, by right scientific methods of cultivation, of the 
natural wealth of the soil. Despite his invincible prejudices, 
Spenser acknowledged, too, some good qualities in the native 
Irish. They were skilled and alert horsemen. ' I have heard 
some great warriors say, that, in all the services which they 
had seen abroad in foreign countries, they never saw a more 
comely horseman than the Irish man, nor that cometh on 
more bravely in his charge: neither is his manner of mounting 
unseemly, though he wants stirrups, but more ready than 
with stirrups, for in his getting up his horse is still going, 
whereby he gaineth way.' 

Spenser allows, too, a qualified virtue in the native poetry. 
Of Irish compositions Spenser asserts that ' they savoured of 
sweet wit and good invention, but skilled not of the goodly 
ornaments of Poetry: yet were they sprinkled with some 
pretty flowers of their own natural device, which gave good 



190 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

grace and comeliness unto them.' Spenser also took an 
antiquarian interest in the remains of Irish art and civilisa- 
tion, and contemplated a work on Irish antiquities, of which 
no trace has been found. 

Only the natural beauty of the country excited in him any 
genuine enthusiasm. ' And sure it is yet a most beautiful 

and sweet country as any is under heaven, seamed 
The natural 

beauty of throughout with many goodly rivers, replenished 
with all sorts of fish; most abundantly sprinkled 
with many sweet islands and goodly lakes like little inland 
seas that will carry even ships upon their waters ; adorned 
with goodly woods fit for building of houses and ships, so 
commodiously, as that if some princes in the world had them, 
they would soon hope to be lords of all the seas, and ere 
long of all the world; also full of good ports and havens 
opening upon England and Scotland, as inviting us to come 
to them ; to see what excellent commodities that country can 
afford, besides the soil itself most fertile, fit to yield all kinds 
of fruit that shall be committed thereunto. And lastly, the 
heavens most mild and temperate.' 

His ' View of the present state of Ireland ' is Spenser's 
only work in prose, and is his final contribution to literature. 



IX 

Early in 1597 Spenser returned to Ireland for the last 
time, and at the moment empty-handed. He was more than 
Sheriff of usually depressed in spirit. His stay at Court, 
Cork 1598. j^ wrote, had been fruitless. Sullen care over- 
whelmed him. Idle hopes flew away like empty shadows. 
None the less a change was wrought next year in his position 
in Ireland. He received the appointment of Sheriff of Cork 
in the autumn of 1598. The preferment was of no enviable 



EDMUND SPENSER 191 

kind. It was an anxious and a thankless office to which Spen- 
ser was called. The difficulties of Irish government were at 
the moment reaching a crisis which was likely to involve 
Sheriffs of the South in personal peril. A great effort was 
in preparation on the part of the native Irish to throw off the 
tyrannous yoke of England, and a stout nerve and resolute 
action were required in all officers of state if the attack were 
to be successfully repulsed. 

The first sign of the storm came in August 1598 — a week 
before Spenser's formal instalment as Sheriff. In that month 
the great leader of the native Irish, the Earl of i re i anc iin 
Tyrone, gathered an army together and met Eng- rebelllon - 
lish troops at Blackwater, not far from Dublin, inflicting on 
them a complete defeat. That is the only occasion in English 
history on which Irishmen, meeting Englishmen in open 
battle, have proved themselves the conquerors. The old spirit 
of discontent, thus stimulated, rapidly spread to Spenser's 
neighbourhood. Tyrone sent some of his Irish soldiers into 
Munster, the whole province was roused, and County Cork 
was at their mercy. Panic seized the little English garrisons 
scattered over the County. Spenser was taken unawares ; the 
castle of Kilcolman was burnt over his head, and he, his 
wife, and four children fled with great difficulty to Cork. 
An inaccurate report spread at the time in London that one 
of his children perished in the flames. Spenser's position 
resembled that of many an English civilian at the outbreak 
in India of the Indian Mutiny, but he did not display the 
heroism or firm courage of those who were to follow him 
as guardians of the outposts of the British Empire. At Cork 
all that Spenser did was to send a brief note of the situation 
to the Queen, entreating her to show those caitiffs the terror 
of her wrath, and send over a force of ten thousand men, 
with sufficient cavalry, to extirpate them. 



192 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

In December the President of Munster, Sir Thomas Nor- 

reys, an old friend of the poet, sent him over to London to 

deliver despatches to the Government. It was his 
His last 
mission to last journey. His health was fatally ruined by 

the shock of the rebellion, and he reached London 

only to die. He found shelter in an inn or lodging in King 

Street, Westminster, and there he died on Saturday, 16th 

January, 1599- He was in the prime of life — hardly more 

than forty-seven years old — but his choice spirit could not 

withstand the buffetings of so desperate a crisis. 

Rumour ran that Spenser died in Westminster, ' for lack of 

bread,' in a state of complete destitution. It is said that 

the Earl of Essex, his host in London of three 
His death. 

years back, learned of his distressful condition too 

late, and that, just before the poet breathed his last, the 
Earl sent him twenty pieces of silver, which Spenser refused 
with the grim remark that he had no time to spend them. The 
story is probably exaggerated. Spenser came to London 
as a Queen's messenger; he was in the enjoyment of a pen- 
sion, and though his life was a long struggle with poverty, 
mainly through unbusinesslike habits, it is unlikely that he 
was without necessaries on his death-bed. It is more probable 
that he died of nervous prostration than of starvation. 1 

At any rate Spenser had friends in London, and they, 
when he was dead, accorded him a fitting burial. West- 

1 Nevertheless the belief that he had been harshly used long survived. 
John Weever, in an epigram published in the year of Spenser's death, 
declared :— - 

' Spenser is ruined, of our latest time 
The fairest ruin, Faeries foulest want.' 

The author of the Return from Parnassus asserts that in his last hours ' main- 
tenance' was denied him by an ungrateful country. A later disciple, 
Phineas Fletcher, in his Purple Island, wrote of Spenser : — 

'Poorly, poor man, he lived; poorly, poor man, he died.' 



EDMUND SPENSER 193 

minster Abbey, the National Church, where the sovereigns 

of the country were wont to find their last earthly home, 

became Spenser's final resting-place. The choice 

His burial. 

of such a sepulchre was notable testimony to his 
poetical repute. The Abbey had not yet acquired its ' Poets' 
Corner ' in its southern transept. It was Spenser's interment 
which practically inaugurated that noble chamber of death. 
Only one great man of letters had been buried there already. 
Chaucer had been laid in the southern transept two hundred 
years before, not apparently in his capacity of poet, but as 
officer of the King's royal household, all members of which 
had some vague title to burial near their royal masters. It 
was not until the middle of the sixteenth century, when 
Chaucer's title to be reckoned the father of great English 
poetry was first acknowledged, that an admirer sought and 
obtained permission to raise a monument to his memory 
near his grave. The episode stirred the imagination of the 
Elizabethans, and when death claimed Spenser, who called 
Chaucer master, and who was reckoned the true successor 
to Chaucer's throne of English poetry, a sentiment spread 
abroad that he who was so nearly akin to Chaucer by force of 
poetic genius ought of right to sleep near his tomb. Accord- 
ingly in fitting pomp Spenser's remains were interred be- 
neath the shadow of the elder poet's monument. 1 The Earl of 
Essex, the favourite of the Queen, who honoured Spenser 
with unqualified enthusiasm, and despite his waywardness 
in politics never erred in his devotion to the Muses, defrayed 
the expenses of the ceremony. Those who attended the 

1 The propriety of the honour thus accorded to Spenser is crudely but 
emphatically acknowledged by the author of the Pilgrimage to Parnassus, 
1600, where the critic of contemporary literature, Ingenioso, after lamenting 
the sad circumstances of Spenser's death, adds : — 

'But softly may our honour's [var. lect. Homer's] ashes rest, 
That lie by merry Chaucer's noble chest.' 
M 



194 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

obsequies were well chosen. In the procession of mourners 
walked, we are told, the poets of the day, and when the 
coffin was lowered these loving admirers of their great col- 
league's work threw into his tomb ' poems and mournful 
elegies with the pens that wrote them.' Little imagination 
is needed to conjure up among those who paid homage to 
Spenser's spirit the glorious figure of Shakespeare, by whom 
alone of contemporaries Spenser was outshone. 

It was welcome to the Queen herself that Spenser, the 
greatest of her poetic panegyrists, should receive due honour 
The tomb * n death. There is reason to believe that she 
in West- claimed the duty of erecting a monument above 

Abbey. n j s g rav e. But the pecuniary misfortunes which 

had dogged Spenser in life seemed to hover about him after 
death. The royal intention of honouring his memory was 
defeated by the dishonesty of a royal servant. The money 
which was allotted to the purpose by the Queen was nefa- 
riously misapplied. Ultimately, twenty-one years after Spen- 
ser's death, a monument was erected at the cost of a noble 
patroness of poets, Ann Clifford, Countess of Dorset. The 
inscription ran: — ' Here lyes expecting the second comminge 
of our Saviour Christ Jesus, the body of Edmond Spencer, 
the Prince of Poets in his tyme, whose divine spirit needs 
noe other witnesse than the workes which he left behind 
him.' Spenser was rightfully named prince of the realm 
of which Shakespeare was king. Although Shakespeare was 
not buried at Westminster, Spenser's tomb was soon encircled 
by the graves of other literary heroes of his epoch, and in 
course of time a memorial statue of Shakespeare overlooked 
it. Three of Spenser's contemporaries, Francis Beaumont, 
Michael Drayton, and Ben Jonson, were within a few years 
interred near him in the Abbey. 

Time dealt unkindly with the fabric of Spenser's monu- 



EDMUND SPENSER 195 

ment, and in the eighteenth century it needed renovating ' in 
durable marble.' But it was Spenser's funeral rites that 
permanently ensured for literary eminence the loftiest dignity 
of sepulture that the English nation has to bestow. Great 
literature was thenceforth held to rank with the greatest 
achievements wrought in the national service. During the 
last two centuries few English poets of supreme merit have 
been denied in death admission to the national sanctuary in 
the neighbourhood of Spenser's tomb. Those who have been 
buried elsewhere have been, like Shakespeare, commemorated 
in Westminster Abbey by sculptured monuments. 



In practical affairs Spenser's life was a failure. It ended 
in a somewhat sordid tragedy, which added nothing to his 
political reputation. His literary work stands on a very 
different footing. Its steady progress in varied excellences 
was a ceaseless triumph for art. It won him immortal fame. 
Spenser's chief work, the Faerie, Queene, was the s pe nser 
greatest poem that had been written in England 6 reatr 
since Chaucer died, and remains, when it is brought into 
comparison with all that English poets have written since, 
one of the brightest jewels in the crown of English poetry. 
It is worthy of closest study. Minute inquiry into its form 
and spirit is essential to every estimate of Spenser's eminence. 

In all senses the work is great. The scale on which 

Spenser planned his epic allegory has indeed no parallel 

in ancient or modern literature. All that has 

The amph- 

reached us is but a quarter of the contemplated tude of 

scale, 
whole. Yet the Faerie Queene is, in its extant 



3rs 
tness. 



shape, as long as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey combined with 
Virgil's Aeneid. Even epics of more recent date, whose 
example Spenser confesses to have emulated, fell far behind 



196 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

his work in its liberality of scale. In the unfinished form 
that it has come down to us, Spenser's epic is more than 
twice as long as Dante's La Divina Commedia or Tasso's 
Gierusalemme Liberata; Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, with 
which Spenser was thoroughly familiar, was brought to com- 
pletion in somewhat fewer lines. Nor did Spenser's great 
successors compete with him in length. Milton's Paradise 
Lost, the greatest of all English epics, fills, when joined to 
its sequel Paradise Regained, less than a third of Spenser's 
space. Had the Faerie Queene reached a twenty-fourth 
book, as the poet at the outset thought possible, not all the 
great epics penned in ancient or modern Europe would, when 
piled one upon the other, have reached the gigantic dimen- 
sions of the Elizabethan poem. 

The serious temper and erudition, of which the enterprise 
was the fruit, powerfully impress the inquirer at the outset. 
It is doubtful if Milton and Gray, who are usually reckoned 
the most learned of English poets, excelled Spenser in the 
range of their reading, or in the extent to which their poetry 
Assimila- assimilated the fruits of their study. Homer and 
tive power. Theocritus, Virgil and Cicero, Petrarch and Du 
Bellay, mediaeval writers of chivalric romance, Tasso and 
Ariosto, supply ideas, episodes and phrases to the Faerie 
Queene. Early in life Spenser came under the spell of Tasso, 
the monarch of contemporary Italian poetry, and gathered 
much suggestion from his ample store. But the Faerie Queene 
owes most to the epic of Orlando Furioso by Tasso's prede- 
cessor, Ariosto. The chivalric adventures which Spenser's 
heroes undergo are often directly imitated from the Italian of 
' that most famous Tuscan pen.' Many an incident, together 
with the moralising which its details suggest, follows Ariosto 
in phraseology too closely to admit any doubt of its source. 
Spenser is never a plagiarist. He invests his borrowings 



EDMUND SPENSER 197 

with his own individuality. But very numerous are the pas- 
sages which owed their birth to Ariosto's preceding invention. 
The Italian poet is rich in imagery. He drank deep of the 
Pierian spring. He is, indeed, superior to Spenser in the con- 
ciseness and directness of his narrative power. But Ariosto 
has little of the warmth of human sympathy or moral elevation 
which dignifies Spenser's effort. Spenser's tone is far more 
serious than that of the Italian master, whose main aim was 
the telling of an exciting tale. Ariosto is far inferior to Spenser 
in the sustained energy alike of his moral and of his poetic 
impulse. 

The Faerie Queene was not designed, like Ariosto's achieve- 
ment, as a mere piece of art. It was before all else a moral 
treatise. Although it was fashioned on the epic The moral 
lines with which constant reading of the work aim- 
of Homer and Virgil among the ancients, and more es- 
pecially of Ariosto and Tasso among the moderns, had made 
Spenser familiar, Spenser was not content merely to tell a 
story. According to the poet's own account, he sought ' to 
represent all the moral virtues, Holiness, Temperance, Chas- 
tity, and the like, assigning to every virtue a knight to be the 
pattern and defender of the same; in whose actions and feats 
of arms and chivalry the operations of that virtue, whereof he 
is the protector, are to be expressed, and the vices and unruly 
appetites that oppose themselves against the same to be 
beaten down and overcome.' Twelve books, one for each 
moral virtue, were needed for such an exposition of ethical 
philosophy. But this was only the first step in the poet's 
contemplated journey. The author looked forward to supple- 
menting this ethical effort by an exposition of political 
philosophy, in another twelve books which would expound 
the twelve political virtues that were essential to a perfect 
ruler of men. Of the twenty- four projected books there is a 



198 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

tradition that Spenser wrote twelve, nearly half of which 
were destroyed in manuscript by the rebels in Ireland. It is 
certain that only the first six books, with a small portion of 
the seventh, have reached us. 

Spenser's ethical views are not systematically developed, 
but, considered in their main aspect, they owe an immense 
The debt debt to the Greek philosopher Plato. Plato's 
to Plato. ethical teaching glows in page after page of the 
Faerie Queene and of Spenser's shorter poems. The English 
poet loyally accepts Plato's doctrines that true beauty is 
only of the mind, that reason is the sole arbiter of 
man's destiny, that war must be waged on the passions and 
the bodily senses, that peace and happiness are the fruit 
of the intellect when it is enfranchised of corporeal infirmity. 
' All happy peace and goodly government ' are only ' settled 
in sure establishment ' 

'In a body which doth freely yield 
His parts to reason's rule obedient, 
And letteth her that ought the sceptre wield.* l 

But it is not merely in his general ethical tone that Spenser 
acknowledges his discipleship to Plato. Many details of the 
Faerie Queene embody Platonic terminology and Platonic 
conceptions. In book in. he borrows from Plato the con- 
ception of ' the garden of Adonis ' — Nature's nursery — and 
under that image he presents Plato's theory of the infinite 
mutability of matter, despite its indestructibility. Infinite 
shapes of creatures are bred, Spenser points out, ' in that 
same garden ' wherewith the world is replenished, 

'Yet is the stock not lessened, nor spent, 
But still remains in everlasting store, 
As it at first created was of yore.' 2 

Bk. ii., canto xi., stanza ii. * Bk. in., canto vi., stanza xxxvi. 



EDMUND SPENSER 199 

In book ii. Spenser describes the threefold elements which 
go to the making of man's soul: right reason (Medina), the 
passion of wrath (Elissa), and the passion of sensual desire 
(Perissa). Although the poet here recalls the doctrine of 
Plato's great disciple, Aristotle, to the effect that virtue is the 
golden mean between excess and defect, he actually accepts 
the older Platonic principle that virtue is the mean between 
two equally active and powerful evil passions. Occasionally 
Spenser ranges himself with later Greek philosophers, who 
developed and exaggerated Plato's doctrine of the eternal 
spirit's supremacy over mutable matter. But Plato is always 
his foremost teacher, not only in the Faerie Queene but in his 
sonnets, in his rapturous hymns of beauty, and in much else 
of his occasional poetry. 

In fulfilment of his ethical purpose the poet imagined 
twelve knights, each the champion of one of ' the private 

moral virtues,' who should undertake perilous com- 

Spenser's 

bats with vice in various shapes. The first and Knights of 

the Virtues. 
second champions, — respectively, the knight of the 

Red Cross, or of Holiness, and Sir Guyon, the knight of 
Temperance,— embody with singular precision Platonic doc- 
trine. The third champion, a more original conception, was 
a woman, Britomart, the lady-knight of Chastity; the fourth 
was Cambell, who, joined with Triamond, illustrates the 
worth of Friendship; the fifth was Artegal, the knight of 
Justice; the sixth, Sir Calidore, the knight of Courtesy. 
Spenser intended that his seventh knight should be cham- 
pion of Constancy, but of that story only a fragment survives. 
Sir Calidore is the last completed hero in the poet's gallery. 
The allegorised adventures in which Spenser's knights en- 
gage are cast for the most part in the true epic mould. Episode 
after episode reads like chapters of chivalric romance of ad- 
venture. Rescues of innocent ladies by the knights, of knights, 



200 GREAT ENGLISHMEN" 

from the persecutions of giant villains, constantly recur. 
Fiercely fought encounters with monsters of hateful mien 
abound. Spenser indeed employs this machinery of chivalric 
conflict with a frequency that leaves the impression of 
Affinities monotony. The charge of tediousness which has 
chivalric often been brought against the Faerie Queene is 
romance. no j. eaS y ^ re pel when it is levelled against Spen- 
ser's descriptions of his valiant heroes' physical perils. 1 

But there is much else in the poem to occupy the reader's 
mind. Spenser's design, to satisfy the primary laws of epic, 
would have failed had he allowed it to hinge alone on isolated 

adventures of virtuous knights, of knights who pur- 
The Queen & ' & r 

and Prince sued their careers independently of one another. 

Arthur. 

From the epic point of view there was urgent need 
of welding together the separate episodes. Great as is the 
place they fill in the story, the chivalric types of the moral 
virtues are, consequently, not its only protagonists. With a 
view to investing the whole theme with homogeneity and unity 
the poet introduced two supreme beings, a heroine and a hero, 
to whom the other characters are always subsidiary. Each 
knight is the subject of a female monarch, the Faerie Queene, 
in whose person flourish all human excellences. She is the 
worthy object of every manner of chivalric adoration, and in 
her name all chivalric deeds are wrought. In this royal quin- 
tessence of virtue Spenser, with courtier-like complacency, 

1 Macaulay's denunciation of the monotony of the poem is well known. 
In his essay on Bunyan he writes : — ' Of the persons who read the first canto, 
not one in ten reaches the end of the first book, and not one in a hundred 
perseveres to the end of the poem. Very few and very weary are those who 
are in at the end, at the death of the Blatant Beast.' This criticism only 
seems just with qualifications, and it is impaired by the inaccuracy of its 
final words. The Blatant Beast, which typifies the spirit of malice, does 
not die in the sixth and last completed book in which it plays its stirring 
part. The knight of Courtesy, Sir Calidore, makes captive of the monster, 
but it ultimately escapes its chains, and in the concluding stanzas is described 
as ranging through the world again without restraint. 



EDMUND SPENSER 201 

idealised his own sovereign, Queen Elizabeth. But the queen of 
the poem is not quite isolated in her pre-eminence. The knights 
owe allegiance to another great prince — to Prince Arthur, in 
whom the twelve private moral virtues are all combined. 
Prince Arthur presents Aristotle's philosophical idea of 
magnanimity, the human realisation of moral perfectibility. 
This perfect type of mankind was, according to Spenser's 
design, to intervene actively in the development of the plot. 
He was to meet with each of the twelve knights when they 
were hard pressed by their vicious foes, and by his superior 
powers to rescue each in turn from destruction. Nor were 
these labours to exhaust the prince's function in the machin- 
ery of the poem. He was not merely to act as the providence 
of the knights. He was allotted a romance of his own. He 
was in quest of a fated bride, and she was no other than 
the Faerie Queene. 

The ground-plan of the great poem proved somewhat 
unwieldy. The singleness of scheme at which Spenser aimed 

in subordinating his virtuous knights to two higher 

8 6 6 Want of 

powers, the Faerie Queene and Prince Arthur, homo- 
was hardly attained. The links which were in- 
vented to bind the books together proved hardly strong 
enough to bear the strain. The poet's ' endeavours after 
variety ' conquer his efforts at unity. Each of the extant 
books might, despite all the author's efforts, be easily mis- 
taken for an independent poem. The whole work may fairly 
be described as a series of epic poems very loosely bound one 
to another. It is scarcely an organic whole. The amplitude 
of scale on which the work was planned, the munificence of 
detail which burdens each component part, destroys in the 
reader the sense of epic unity. 

It was hardly possible to obey strictly all the principles of 
epic art while serving an allegorical purpose, and from that 



202 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

allegorical purpose Spenser never consciously departs. He 
announced in his opening invocation to Clio his intention to 
' moralise ' his song, and he frequently reminds 
allegorical his reader of his resolve. His heroes and hero- 
ines are not, as in the writings of Spenser's epic 
tutors, mere creatures of flesh and blood, in whose material 
or spiritual fortune the reader's interest is to be excited. 
In the poet's mind they are always moving abstractions which 
illustrate the moral laws that sway human affairs. Truth, 
Falsehood, Hypocrisy, Mammon, Pride, Wantonness, are the 
actors and actresses on Spenser's stage. The scenery is not 
inanimate nature, nor dwellings of brick and stone. The 
curtain rises now on the Bower of Bliss; now on the Cave 
of Despair; now on the House of Temperance. The poet 
seeks to present a gigantic panorama of the moral dangers 
and difficulties that beset human existence. 

To manipulate a long-drawn allegory so as to concentrate 
the reader's attention on its significance, and to keep his 
Spenser interest at all seasons thoroughly alive, is a diffi- 

Bunyan cu ^ task. The restraints which are imposed by 

compared. ^he sus t a j ne( l an( J prolonged pursuit of analogies 
between the moral and material worlds are especially oppres- 
sive to the spirit of a poet who is gifted with powers of 
imagination of infinite activity. In his capacity of worker 
in allegory Spenser falls as far short of perfection as in 
his capacity of worker in epic. Only one Englishman con- 
trived a wholly successful allegory. Spenser was not he. 
John Bunyan, in the Pilgrim's Progress, alone among Eng- 
lishmen possessed just that definite measure of imagination 
which enabled him to convert with absolute sureness personi- 
fications of virtues and vices into speaking likenesses of men 
and women and places. Bunyan's great exercise in the alle- 
gorical art is rarely disfigured by inconsistencies or incoher- 



EDMUND SPENSER 203 

ences. His scenes and persons — Christian and Faithful, The 
House Beautiful and Vanity Fair — while they are perfectly 
true to analogy, — are endowed with intelligible and life-like 
features. The moral significance is never doubtful, while the 
whole picture leaves the impression of a masterpiece of 
literary fiction. 

Spenser's force of imagination was far wider than Bun- 
yan's. His culture and his power over language were in- 
finitely greater. But Spenser failed where Bunyan succeeded, 
through the defect of his qualities, through excess of capacity, 
through the diversity of his interests, through the discursive- 
ness of his imagination. He had little of Bunyan's singleness 
of purpose, simplicity of thought and faith, or faculty of self- 
suppression. His poetic and intellectual ebullience could not 
confine itself to the comparatively narrow and direct path, 
pursuit of which was essential to perfection in allegory and 
won for Bunyan his unique triumph. 

Spenser's interests in current life and his aesthetic tempera- 
ment were in fact too alert to allow him to confine his efforts 
to the search after moral analogies. Strong as i n fl uen ce 
was his moral sense, he was also thrall to his pas- oflllsa g e - 
sion for beauty. Few manifestations of beauty either in 
nature or in art which fell within his cognisance could 
he pass by in silence. He had drunk deep, too, of the 
ideals peculiar to his own epoch. He was a close observer of 
the leading events and personages of Elizabethan history, and 
in defiance of the laws of allegory he wove into the web of 
his poetry many personal impressions of contemporary per- 
sonages and movements, which had no just home in a moral 
or philosophical design of professedly universal application. 
Duessa, the hateful witch of Falsehood, who endeavours 
to mislead the Red Cross Knight of Holiness (bk. i.), 
and seeks another victim in another knight, Sir Scuda- 



204 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

more (bk. iv.), is no universal pattern of vice; she is 
Spenser's interpretation of the character of Mary, Queen 
of Scots. Sir Artegal, the Knight of Justice, is obviously a 
portrait of Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton, Lord Deputy of 
Ireland, whom Spenser served as secretary. Elsewhere there 
are undisguised references to the poet's painful personal rela- 
tion with Lord Treasurer Burghley: — 

'The rugged forehead, that with grave foresight, 
Welds kingdom's causes and affairs of state.' 1 

Spenser laments that he had incurred this ' mighty peer's dis- 
pleasure ' by applying himself too exclusively to tales of 
love (Bk. vi., canto xii., stanza xli.). Queen Elizabeth her- 
self constantly appears on the scene, and no halo of allegory 
is suffered to encircle her. Spenser addresses her in the key 
of adulation which is a conventional note of the panegyric of 
princes, but is altogether out of harmony with a broad philo- 
sophic tone. The Queen is apostrophised as the main source 
of the poet's inspiration : — 

'And thou, O fairest Princess under sky! 
In this fair mirror mayest behold thy face, 
And thine own realms in land of Fairy, 
And in this antique image thy great ancestry.' 2 

In another passage of the second book Prince Arthur and 
the Knight of Temperance, Sir Guyon, peruse together two 
old books called respectively The Briton Moniments and The 
Antiquity of Fairy from which the poet pretends to draw a 
chronicle of the old British kings. He justifies the digression 
by a rapturous panegyric of ' my own sovereign queen, thy 
realm and race,' who is descended 

'From mighty kings and conquerors in war, 
Thy fathers and great grandfathers of old, 

Bk. iv., introd., stanza i. * Bk. u., introd., stanza iv. 



EDMUND SPENSER 205 

Whose noble deeds above the Northern Star 
Immortal fame for ever hath enrolled.' * 

Nowhere does the fervid loyalty of the Elizabethan find 
more literal utterance than in Spenser's poem. 

However zealous a worshipper at the shrine of ' divine 
philosophy,' Spenser was deeply moved by the peculiar 
aspirations which fired the age, and the prejudices which dis- 
torted its judgment. His resolve to preach morality that 
should be of universal application was not proof against such 
influences. The old blind woman in the first book, counting 
her beads and mumbling her nine hundred ' pater nosters ' 
and nine hundred ' ave marias,' is a caricature of papistry. It 
is the fruit of the contemporary Protestant zeal which in- 
fected Spenser and his circle of friends. The current passion 
for exploring the New World moves the poet to note how 
every day — 

'Through hardy enterprise 
Many great Regions are discovered, 
Which to late age were never mentioned. 
Who ever heard of th' Indian Peru ? 
Or who in venturous vessel measured 
The Amazon huge river, now found true ? 
Or fruitfullest Virginia who did ever view ?' 2 

Identifying himself with a popular sentiment of the day, the 
poet lays stress on the enlightened argument that no limits 
can be set to the area over which man's energy and enterprise 
may yet gain sway: — 

'Yet all these were, when no man did them know, 
Yet have from wisest ages hidden been; 
And later times things more unknown shall show. 
Why then should witless man so much misween, 
That nothing is but that which he hath seen?' 3 

1 Bk. ii., canto x., stanza iv. 2 Bk. n., introd., stanza ii. 

3 Bk. ii., introd., stanza iii. 



206 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

Such digressions and interpolations add greatly to the 
poem's charm and variety, but they interrupt the flow of 
the allegorical narrative and frankly ignore the allegorical 
design. 

But it is not as a chivalric story nor as an allegory, it 
is not as an epic narrative nor as an ethical tractate, nor 
The poetic indeed is it as an exposition of Elizabethan ideals 
style. an( j sentiments, that Spenser's poem is to be finally 

judged. It is by its poetic style and spirit that it must be 
appraised. It is the fertility of the poet's imagination, the 
luxuriance of his pictorial imagery, his exceptional command 
of the music of words^ which give the Faerie Queene its 
highest title to honour. Despite all his ethical professions 
and his patriotic zeal, it was to the muse of poetry alone that 
Spenser swore unswerving fealty. The spirit of his work 
may best be gauged by the opening stanza of his sixth and 
last completed book: — 

'The ways through which my weary steps I guide 
In this delightful land of Fairy, 
Are so exceeding spacious and wide, 
And sprinkled with such sweet variety 
Of all that pleasant is to ear or eye, 
That I, nigh ravished with rare thought's delight, 
My tedious travel do forget thereby; 
And, when I gin to feel decay of might, 
It strength to me supplies and cheers my dulled sprite. 

Such secret comfort and such heavenly pleasures, 

Ye sacred imps, that on Parnassus dwell, 

And there the keeping have of learning's treasures 

Which do all earthly riches far excel, 

Into the minds of mortal men do well, 

And goodly fury into them infuse; 

Guide ye my footing, and conduct me well, 

In these strange ways, where never foot did use, 

Ne none can find but who was taught them by the Muse.' 



EDMUND SPENSER 207 

His quarry is ' all that pleasant is to ear or eye.' He 
dwells in ' that delightful land ' where the ' sacred imps ' of 
Parnassus infuse ' goodly fury ' into the minds of mortal men. 
His conception of happiness is to be ' nigh ravished with rare 
thought's delight.' It is not study of religion or philosophy 
or politics that can cheer and strengthen his ' dulled sprite.' 
It is in the ' exceeding spacious and wide ' realms of beauty, 
which are only accessible to the poet's imagination, that he 
finds ' heavenly pleasures.' Spenser abandoned himself reck- 
lessly to the pure spirit of poetry. Despite the diffuseness 
of utterance and lack of artistic restraint which were inevita- 
ble in so fervid a votary of the Muses, Spenser, in his Faerie 
Queene, gave being to as noble a gallery of sublime concep- 
tions, as imposing a procession of poetic images, as ever came 
from the brain of man. 

The form of Spenser's verse was admirably adapted to its 

purpose. It was his own invention, and is in itself striking 

testimony to the originality of his genius. The 

The 
Spenserian stanza was ingeniously formed by add- Spenserian 

ing an Alexandrine, a line in twelve syllables, to 

the eight ten-syllabled lines of the stanza which was popular 

in France under the name of ' Chant royal,' and in Italy under 

the name of ' ottava rima.' Undoubtedly there is in Spenser's 

metrical device a tendency to monotony and tediousness. 

Languor would seem to be an inevitable characteristic. 

Dr. Johnson complained that the stanza was ' tiresome to the 

ear by its uniformity, and to the attention by its length.' 

But Spenser's rare poetic instinct enabled him to hold such 

defect in check by variety in the pauses. In his hands the 

stanza is for the most part an instrument of sus- The flow of 

tained spirit, even though the closing Alexandrine theverse - 

imposes a gentle and leisurely pace on the progress of the 

verse. One stanza glides into the next with graceful, natu- 



208 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

ral flow and at times with rapidity. The movement has 
been compared, not perhaps quite appositely, to that of the 
magic gondola which Spenser describes in his account of the 
Lady of the Idle Lake; the vessel slides 

'More swift than swallow shears the liquid sky; 

It cut away upon the yielding wave, 

Ne cared she her course for to apply; 

For it was taught the way which she would have, 

And both from rocks and flats itself could wisely save.' * 

Spenser does not altogether avoid ' rocks and flats.' Hor- 
ace Walpole called attention to a certain want of judgment 
in devising a nine-line stanza, — in a language so barren of 
rhymes as the English tongue, — with only three different 
rhymes ; of these one is twice repeated, the second three times, 
and the third four times. This rhyming difficulty was not 
capable of complete mastery, and Spenser's rhyming failures 
are not inconspicuous. There are in every canto some stanzas 
in which an awkward strain is put, by the exigencies of 
rhyme, on the laws of syntax, prosody and even good sense. 
But the great passages of the poem are singularly free from 
irregularities of metre, and fascinate us by the dexterity of 
the rhymes. In view of the massive proportions of the work, 
Spenser's metrical success moves almost boundless admiration. 
In the Spenserian stanza, as Spenser handled it, are, if any- 
where, ' the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of 
poetry.' 2 

1 Bk. n., canto vi., stanza v. 

2 Every canto offers examples of carelessness. Turning to bk. iv., canto 
ii., we find Spenser in a single stanza (xxxiii.) rhyming 'waste' with 'de- 
faced' (which is spelt ' def aste ' in order to cover up the irregularity) ; ' writs ' 
for purposes of rhyme are used for ' writings,' and the closing Alexandrine 
sinks to such awkward tautology as this: — 

' Sith works of heavenly wits 
Are quite devoured, and brought to naught by little bits.' 

(Stanza xxxiii.) 



EDMUND SPENSER 209 

Spenser in the Faerie Queene, as in his earliest poetic 
effort, The Shepheards Calender, deliberately used a vocabu- 
lary that was archaic for its own day. Many con- rj^g 
temporary critics were doubtful of his wisdom, vocabulary. 
The poet Daniel, who fully recognised Spenser's genius, 
deemed his meaning needlessly obscured by ' aged accents 
and untimely (i.e. obsolete) words.' But a tendency to 
preciosity, a predilection for the unfamiliar, a passion for 
what was out of date, were characteristic of Spenser's faculty. 
Archaic language lent, in his view, the beauty of mellowness 
to his work and removed it from the rawness or ' wearisome 
turmoil ' of current speech. 

It was his filial devotion to Chaucer which mainly kept 
alive Spenser's love for archaisms of speech. Chaucer's 
verse had from earliest days lingered in his mem- The ^ e ^ t 
ory, and he occasionally quotes lines of his prede- toChaucer - 
cessor word for word. 1 In book iv., canto ii., he completes 
the Squire's Tale, which in Chaucer's text was left unfinished. 
Spenser fulfils Chaucer's promise to tell of the chivalric 

In stanza lii. the Alexandrine again offends: — 

' That both their lives may likewise be annext 
Unto the third, that his may so be trebly wext.' 

The last stanza of the canto ends lamely and with burlesque effect, thus:—' 

'The which, for length, I will not here pursew, 
But rather will reserve it for a Canto new.' 

(Stanza liv.) 
1 With Spenser's 

' Ne may Love be compelled by mastery : 
For soon as mastery comes, sweet Love anon 
Taketh his nimble wings, and soon away is gone.' 

(Bk. in., canto i., stanza xxv.) 
compare Chaucer's 

'Love wolle not be constreyn'd by maistery; 
When maistery cometh, the God of Love anone 
Betith his winges, and farewell he is gone. 

(Franklin's Tale, lines 2310-2.) 

O 



210 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

contests in which suitors for the hand of the fair Canace 
engaged. This episode was preluded in the Faerie Queene 
by a splendid invocation to his master, to revive whose 
' English ' undefiled was one of his primary ambitions. 

'Dan Chaucer, well of English undefiled, 
On fame's eternal beadroll worthy to be filed. 

Then pardon, O most sacred happy spirit! 

That I thy labours lost may thus revive, 

And steal from thee the meed of thy due merit, 

That none durst ever whilst thou wast alive, 

And being dead in vain yet many strive: 

Ne dare I like; but, through infusion sweet 

Of thine own spirit which doth in me survive, 

I follow here the footing of thy feet, 

That with thy meaning so I may the rather meet.' * 

Spenser's artistic nature was many-sided. Plato's idealism, 

equally with Chaucer's homely gaiety and insight, 
Hissensi- > 

tivenessto moulded his mind. But his varied knowledge of 
beauty. 

literature and philosophy went hand in hand with a 

different type of endowment, — a sensuous sensitiveness to ex- 
ternal aspects of nature. 

'Every sight 
And sound from the vast earth and ambient air 
Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.' 

Especially perfect is the art with which he depicts fountains 
and rivers and oceans. The magical canto in which he 
describes the marriage of the river Thames with the river 
Medway is rich alike in classical allusion and intimate knowl- 
edge of British topography. But the varied learning is 
fused together by an exuberance of pictorial fancy and 
sympathy with natural scenery, which give individuality to 
almost every stream that may have come within the poet's 

1 Bk. iv., canto ii., stanzas xxxii. and xxxiv. 



EDMUND SPENSER 211 

cognisance either in literature or in life. Spenser's power 
as the poet of nature owes its finest quality to his rare genius 
for echoing in verse the varied sounds which natural phenom- 
ena produce in the observer's ear. When he represents a 
gentle flowing river, the metre glides with a corresponding 
placidity. When he describes a tempestuous wind, the words 
rush onwards with an unmistakable roar. In the familiar 
stanzas which follow we hear in living harmonies the voices 
of the birds: — 

'Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound, 
Of all that mote delight a dainty ear, 
Such as at once might not on living ground, 
Save in the Paradise, be heard elsewhere: 
Right hard it was for wight which did it hear, 
To read what manner music that mote be, 
For all that pleasing is to living ear 
Was there consorted in one harmony; 
Birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters, all agree. 

The joyous birds, shrouded in cheerful shade 
Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet; 
Th' Angelical soft trembling voices made 
To th' instruments divine respondence meet; 
The silver sounding instruments did meet 
With the base murmurs of the waters fall; 
The waters fall with difference discreet, 
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call; 
The gentle warbling wind low answered to all.' ' 

Spenser did not depict physical beauty in men or women 
with quite the same abandonment that he brought to the 
sights and sounds of earth or air. But although Spenser 
studied as thoroughly as any poet the aspects of physical 
beauty — ' the goodly hue of white and red with which the 
cheeks are sprinkled ' — his philosophic idealism would seldom 

1 Bk. n., canto xii., stanzas Ixx-lxxi. 



212 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

allow him to content himself with the outward appearance. 
To him as to Plato the fair body was merely the external 
expression of an inner spiritual or ideal beauty, which it was 
the duty of reasoning man to worship: — 

'So every spirit, as it is most pure 
And hath in it the more of heavenly light, 
So it the fairer body doth procure 
To habit in, and is more fairly dight 
With cheerful grace and amiable sight, 
For of the soul the body form doth take, 
For soul is form, and doth the body make.' 1 

Spenser's influence on the poetic endeavours of his own 
age was very great. Imitations of his allegorical method 
abounded, and one at least of his disciples, Phineas Fletcher, 
Spenser's produced in his Purple Island an elaborate alle- 
mfluence. gorical description of the human body, a poem 
which, despite its defects and dependence on the Faerie 
Queene, does no dishonour to its source. Charles Lamb justly 
called Spenser ' the poet's poet.' Probably no poem is 
qualified equally with the Faerie Queene to endow the seeds 
of poetic genius in youthful minds with active life. Cowley's 
confession is capable of much pertinent illustration in the 
biography of other poets. ' I believe,' wrote Cowley, ' I can 
tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with 
such chimes of verse as have never since left ringing there; 
for I remember, when I began to read and take some pleasure 
in it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlour (I know 
not by what accident, for she herself never in her life read 
any book but of devotion) ; but there was wont to lie Spenser's 
Works; this I happened to fall upon, and was infinitely 
delighted with the stories of the knights and giants, and 
monsters, and brave horses which I found everywhere there 

1 An Hymne in Honour of Beautie, 11. 127-133. 



EDMUND SPENSER 213 

(though my understanding had little to do with all this) ; and 
by degrees with the tinkling of the rhyme and dance of the 
numbers, so that I had read him all before I was twelve years 
old, and was thus made a poet.' 

The variety of Spenser's excellences caused his work to 
appeal in different ways to different men. The boy Cowley 

was fascinated by his chivalric tales of wonder and 

The variety 

the ringing harmony of his verse. Milton was of his excel- 
lences. 

chiefly impressed by the profundity of his ideal 

philosophy; Bunyan by his moral earnestness. Dryden did 
homage to him as his master in poetic speech, although he 
deemed his learning his crowning merit. In the eighteenth 
century the impulse to poetic effort which was inherent 
in his writings showed no sign of decay. James Thomson 
and Robert Burns, Shelley and Keats, Byron and Campbell, 
worked with varying skill in the Spenserian stanza, and, by 
the uses to which they put their master's metrical instrument, 
added to the masterpieces of English poetry. The poems 
penned in the stanza of the Faerie Queene include the Cotter's 
Saturday Night by Burns, the Eve of St. Agnes by Keats, and 
Childe Harold by Byron, and all reflect glory on the stanza's 
inventor. But Spenser's work is an inexhaustible fountain 
of poetic inspiration, and none can define the limits of its 
influence. 



VI 

FRANCIS BACON 

' The mind is the man, ... A man is but what he knoweth.' 
Bacon, Praise of Knowledge, 1592. 

[Bibliography. — Bacon's life and work may be studied in full 
in the Life and Letters, by James Spedding, 7 vols., 1861-74, 
and in the Works, edited by J. Spedding, R. L. Ellis, and D.D. 
Heath, 7 vols., 1857-9. The best summary of his life and work 
is Francis Bacon, an Account of his Life and Works, by the Rev. 
E. A. Abbott, D.D., 1885. The text of his chief English writ- 
ings was published in a convenient volume, at a small price, 
by George Newnes, Limited, in 1902. Of modern annotated 
reprints of the Essays, those edited respectively by Dr. Abbott 
(1879), and by Samuel Harvey Reynolds (Clarendon Press, 
1890), are most worthy of study. A valuable Harmony of the 
Essays — the text of the four chief editions in parallel columns — '■ 
was prepared by Professor Edward Arber in 1869. The Ad- 
vancement of Learning was edited by Dr. Aldis Wright for the 
Clarendon Press in the same year.] 



We now approach the highest but one of the peaks of 
intellectual greatness which were scaled in England by sons 
of the Renaissance. Spenser was a great poet and moralist, 

one who sought to teach men morality by means 
An ascend- 
ing scale of of poetry, one who could weave words into har- 
greatness. . . 

monious sequence, one who could draw music trom 

ordinary speech, with a sureness of touch that only two or 
three men in the world's history — Virgil, perhaps, alone 
among the classical poets, and Milton most conspicuously 
among the modern poets — have excelled. But if we deduct 
214 





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Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban. 

From the portrait by Paul Van Sower in the National Portrait Gallery. 



FRANCIS BACON 215 

Spenser's aesthetic power and moral enthusiasm from the sum 
of his achievement, if we turn to measure the calibre of 
Spenser's intellect or the width of his mental horizon, if we 
estimate the extent by which he advanced human thought 
beyond the limits that human thought had already com- 
manded, we cannot fail to admit (difficult as any precise com- 
parison may be) that Bacon, with whom I now deal, is 
Spenser's intellectual superior. 

Not that Bacon himself is the highest peak in the range 
of sixteenth-century English enlightenment. Giant as Bacon 
was in the realm of mind, in the empire of human intellect, 
Shakespeare, his contemporary, manifested an intellectual 
capacity that places Bacon himself in the second place. 

From every point of view the interval that separates Bacon 

from Shakespeare is a wide one. An illogical tendency has 

of late vears developed in undisciplined minds to , 

J r x Bacon s 

detect in Bacon and Shakespeare a single person- and 
ality. One has heard of brains which, when speare's 

distinct 
subjected to certain excitements, cause their pos- individu- 

sessors to see double, to see two objects when 
only one is in view ; but it is equal proof of unstable, unsteady 
intellectual balance which leads a man or woman to see 
single, to see one individuality when they are in the presence 
of two individualities, each definite and distinct. The intellect 
of both Shakespeare and Bacon may well be termed miracu- 
lous. The facts of biography may be unable to account for 
the emergence of the one or the other, but they can prove 
convincingly that no two great minds of a single era pursued 
literary paths more widely dissevered. To assume, without 
an iota of sound evidence, that both Shakespeare's and 
Bacon's intellect were housed in a single brain is unreal 
mockery. It is an irresponsibly fantastic dream which lies 
outside the limits of reason. 



216 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



ii 



The accessible details of Bacon's biography are more 
numerous and more complicated than in the case of Shake- 
The study speare, or any other writer of the age. His life, 
rf B£ nd nS intellectually and materially, is fuller of known 
work. incident; his writings are more voluminous; his 

extant letters and private memoranda are more accessible. 
His work is noble; his life is ignoble. But in order to under- 
stand his intricate character, in order fully to appreciate his 
psychological interest, in order fully to appreciate his place 
in the history of literature and science, both his biography 
and his work demand almost equally close study. 

Bacon came of no mean stock. His father, Sir Nicholas 
Bacon, was Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, the chief Law 
Bacon's Officer of England, who exercised the authority 

parents. of Lor( j High Chancellor. Sir Nicholas was thus 

a successor of Sir Thomas More. He was of a merry, easy- 
going disposition, with a pronounced love of literature and 
a gift of eloquent speech. He freely and without compunc- 
tion engaged in the political intrigue which infested the 
Queen's Court, and made no greater pretence than his con- 
temporaries to superfine political virtue. Bacon's mother, his 
father's second wife, was a woman of paradoxical character. 
Her great learning and scholarship were of the true Renais- 
sance type; she was at home in most of the classical and post- 
classical authors of Greece and Rome. But her main char- 
acteristic was a fiery religious zeal. She belonged to the 
narrowest and least amiable sect of the Calvinists, and her 
self-righteous temper led her to rule her household and her 
children with a crabbed rigour that did not diminish with age. 
In feature Bacon closely resembled his stern-complexioned 



FRANCIS BACON 217 

mother, and although her sour pietism did not descend to 

him, her love of literature, as well as the resolute self-esteem 

which her creed harboured in her, was woven into the web 

of his character. Lady Bacon was highly connected: her 

sister married Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth's powerful 

Treasurer and Prime Minister. The Prime Minister of the 

day therefore stood to Bacon in the relation of uncle. 

Bacon thus began life with great advantages. He was 

son of the Lord Chancellor and nephew of the 

His advan- 
Prime Minister. It is difficult in England to be tage of 

more influentially related. His family was not 

rich, but it was reasonably provided for. As far as social 

position went, he could not have been better placed. 

Francis Bacon was born in 1561 at his father's official 
residence in London, York House in the Strand, of which 
the water-gate alone survives. Queen Elizabeth B; rt h an( j 
had come to the throne three years before. Shake- educatlon 
speare was born three years after. When he was a child, 
before he was thirteen, Bacon was sent, as the custom then 
was, to a university — to Trinity College, Cambridge, a 
recently founded institution which was even then acquiring 
great educational traditions. He was there for two years, 
and at the age of fifteen returned to London to study law. 

Bacon was an extraordinarily thoughtful boy, full of great 
ambitions, all lying within a well-defined compass. He 
wished to be a great man, to do work by which H ; s 
he might be remembered, to do work that should P rec0Clt y- 
be beneficial to the human race. With that self-confidence 
which he owed to his mother, he judged himself to be, almost 
from childhood, capable of improving man's reasoning 
faculties; of extending the range of man's knowledge, espe- 
cially his knowledge of natural science and the causes of 
natural phenomena. When his father first brought him to 



218 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

Court as a boy, the Queen was impressed by his thoughtful 
demeanour, and laughingly dubbed him, in allusion to his 
father's office, her ' young Lord Keeper.' It is difficult to 
match in history — even in the fertile epoch of the Renaissance 
— either Bacon's youthful precocity, or the closeness and 
fidelity with which he kept before his mind through life 
the ambitions which he formed in youth. 



in 

Three impressionable years of Bacon's youth — from his 
fifteenth to his eighteenth year — were spent at the English 
Theprofes- embassy in Paris, in the capacity of a very junior 
sionoflaw. secretary. The experience widened his outlook on 
life, and gave him a first taste of diplomacy. But his father 
had destined Francis for his own profession of law, and the 
lad returned to England to follow his father's wishes. He 
worked at his profession with industry. But it excited in him 
no enthusiasm. He regarded it as a means to an end. His 
father died when Francis was eighteen. His example en- 
dowed the lad with the belief that intrigue was the key to 
worldly prosperity. A very narrow income was his only 
tangible bequest. But a competence, an ample supply of 
money, was needful if Bacon were to achieve those advances 
in science, if he were to carry to a successful issue those high 
resolves to extend the limit of human knowledge which he 
His held to be his mission in life. ' He knew himself,' 

idealism. j^ repeatedly declared, ' to be fitter to hold a book 
than to play a part on the active stage of affairs.' For affairs 
he said he was not ' fit by Nature and more unfit by the pre- 
occupation of his mind.' Yet he did not hesitate to seek early 
admission to ' the active stage of affairs.' His nature was 



FRANCIS BACON 219 

so framed that he felt it his duty to devote himself to work 
in the world in which he felt no genuine interest in order 
to acquire. that worldly fortune, that worldly posi- His 
tion and worldly influence without which he matenalism - 
regarded it to be impossible to carry into effect his intel- 
lectual ambition, his intellectual mission. Never were 
materialism and idealism woven so firmly together into the 
texture of a man's being. ' I cannot realise the great ideal,' 
he said in effect, ' which I came into the world and am quali- 
fied to reach, unless I am well off and influential in the merely 
material way.' The inevitable sequel was the confession that 
much of his life was misspent ' in things for which he was 
least fit, so, as I may truly say, my soul hath been a stranger 
in the course of my pilgrimage.' 

The profession of the law had prizes which he hoped that 
the influence of his uncle, the Prime Minister, might open 

to him. But Lord Burghley, unlike English offi- 

His en- 

cers of state of later periods, was not always eager trance into 

politics. 

to aid his relatives, and Bacon s early hopes of 

legal preferment were not fulfilled. However, when Bacon 
was twenty-three, his uncle did so much service for him as 
to secure for him a seat in Parliament. He entered the 
House of Commons in 1584, and he remained a member of 
the House for more than thirty years. A lawyer in England 
often finds it extremely advantageous to himself in the 
material sense to identify himself with politics at the same 
time as he practises at the bar. This plan Bacon readily 
adopted. He at once flung himself into the discussion of the 
great political questions of the day in the same spirit as 
that in which he approached the profession of the law. At 
all hazards he must advance himself, he must build up a 
material fortune. -If the intellectual work to which he was 
called were to be done at all, no opportunity of securing the 



220 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

material wherewithal was he justified in rejecting. That is 
the principle which inspired Bacon's attitude to politics as 
well as to law; that is the principle which inspired every 
action of his life outside the walls of his study. 

Naturally as a politician he became an opportunist. His 
intellectual abilities enabled him to form enlightened views 
His attitude °^ political questions, views in advance of his age. 
to politics. jj u j. his ideal was not in politics. His scheme of 
life compelled him to adapt his private views in politics to 
suit the views of those in authority, so as to gain advance- 
ment from them. In his early days in the House of Commons 
he sought to steer a middle course — his aim being so to express 
his genuine political opinions or convictions, which were wise 
in themselves, as to give them a chance of acceptance from 
those in authority. He urged on the Government the wisdom 
of toleration in matters of religion. Aggressive persecution 
of minorities appeared to him in his heart to be unstatesman- 
like as well as inhuman. But he carefully watched the im- 
pression his views created. He was not prepared to sacrifice 
any chance of material advancement to his principles. If 
his own political views proved unacceptable to those who could 
help him on, he must substitute others with which the men 
of influence were in fuller sympathy. 

Very methodical by nature, Bacon systematised as a young 
man practical rules for the scheme of conduct on which he re- 
lied for the advancement of his material interests, 
His work- 
ing scheme and for the consequent acquisition of the opportu- 

nity of working out his philosophical aims in the 
interests of mankind. He drew up a series of maxims, a series 
of precepts for getting on, for bettering one's position — for 
the architecture, as he called it, of one's fortune. Of these 
precepts, which form a cynical comment on Bacon's character 
and on his conception of social intercourse, this much may 



FRANCIS BACON 221 

be said in their favour, — that they get behind the screen of 
conventional hypocrisies. They are not wholly original. In 
spirit, at any rate, they resemble the unblushing counsel which 
Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman and historian of the 
sixteenth century, offered to politicians. The utility of 
Machiavellian doctrines Bacon's father had acknowledged. 
Machiavelli and his kind were among Bacon's heroes : ' We 
are much beholden to Machiavelli and others/ he remarked 
in the Advancement of Learning, ' that wrote what men do, 
not what they ought to do.' But Bacon's compendium of pro- 
verbial philosophy, whatever its debt to others, reveals his 
individuality as clearly as anything to which he set his pen. 
Bacon laid it down that the best way to enforce one's 
views upon those in authority was by appearing to agree with 
them, and by avoiding any declared disagreement jj is 
with them. ' Avoid repulse,' he said ; ' never row P rece P ts - 
against the stream.' Practise deceit, dissimulation, whenever 
it can be made to pay, but at the same time secure the repu- 
tation of being honest and outspoken. ' Have openness in 
fame and repute, secrecy in habit; dissimulation in seasonable 
use, and a power to feign if there be no remedy; mixture of 
falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver which may 
make the metal work better.' Always show off your abilities 
to the best advantage; always try to do better than your 
neighbours. But on none of his rules of conduct does Bacon 
lay greater stress, than on the suggestion that the best and 
most rapid way of geting on is to accommodate The uses of 
oneself to the ways of great men, to bind oneself great men. 
hand and foot to great men. This rule Bacon sought with 
varying success to put into practice many times during his 
life. 



222 GREAT ENGLISHMEN, 



IV 

In 1591, when Bacon was thirty, a first opportunity of 
coming advancement through intimate association with a man 
of position seemed to present itself. He obtained an intro- 
duction to a young nobleman of great ambition and no 
little influence, the Earl of Essex. He was Bacon's junior 

by six years. He was as passionate and impulsive 
Bacon's 

relations a young gentleman as could be found among 
with Essex. 

Elizabethans, but he was not altogether without 

consciousness of his own defects. He was not blind to the 
worth of sobriety and foresight in others. The cool and 
wary good sense of Bacon attracted him; Bacon's abilities 
impressed him. Bacon deliberately planned his relationship 
with Essex to secure his own preferment. He attached him- 
self to Essex, he said, ' in a manner which happeneth rarely 
among men.' He would do the best he could with him in all 
ways. Essex might prove a fit instrument to do good to the 
State as well as to himself. He would persuade Essex to 
carry through certain political reforms which required great 
personal influence to bring them to the serious notice of the 
authorities. At he same time Essex was either to secure for 
his mentor dignified and remunerative office, or to be swept 
out of his path. 

The first episode of the partnership was not promising. 
The high legal oflice of Attorney-General fell vacant. 

Bacon's enthusiastic patron, Essex, was readily in- 
An un- 
promising duced to apply for the post in Bacon's behalf. 

But Essex met with a serious rebuff". A deaf ear 
was turned by the Queen and the Prime Minister to the pro- 
posal. Essex was as disappointed as Bacon himself. He 
quixotically judged himself in honour bound to compensate 



FRANCIS BACON 223 

Bacon for the loss. He gave him a piece of land at Twick- 
enham, which Bacon afterwards sold for <£1800. For a 
moment this failure daunted Bacon. After so discouraging 
an experience he seriously considered with himself whether 
it were not wiser for him altogether to forsake the law, the 
prizes in which seemed beyond his reach, and devote himself 
entirely to the scientific study which was his true end in life. 
It would have been better for his fame had he yielded to the 
promptings of the inner voice. But he was in need of money. 
With conscious misgivings he resolved to keep to the difficult 
path on which he had embarked. 

The outlook did not immediately grow brighter. Closer 
acquaintance with Essex convinced Bacon that he was not 

the man either to carry through any far-reaching 

Essex dis- 

political reforms or to aid his own advancement, appoints 
He was proving himself captious and jealous- 
tempered. He was not maintaining his hold upon the queen's 
favour. Bacon energetically urged on him petty tricks of 
conduct whereby he might win and retain the queen's favour. 
He drew up a series of obsequious speeches which would fit a 
courtier's lips and might convince a sovereign that the man 
who spoke them to her deserved her confidence. 

Finally Bacon sought a bold means of release from a 
doubtful situation. He thoroughly appreciated the difficult 
problem which the government of Ireland offered 

The govern- 

Elizabethan statesmen, and he plainly told Essex ment of 
that Ireland was his destiny; Ireland was 'one of 
the aptest particulars for your Lordship to purchase honour 
on.' Bacon steadily pressed his patron to seek the embar- 
rassing post of Governor or Lord-Deputy of the distracted 
country. The counsel took effect. The arduous office was 
conferred on Essex. His patron's case, as it presented itself 
to Bacon's tortuous mind, was one of kill or cure. Glory was 



224 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

to be gained by pacifying Ireland, by bringing her under 
peaceful rule. Infamy, enforced withdrawal from public 
life, was the reward of failure. The task was admittedly 
hard, and called for greater prudence than any of which 
Essex had yet given signs. But Bacon, from his point of 
view, thought it desirable that Essex should have the op- 
portunity of achieving some definite triumph in life which 
would render his future influence supreme. Or if he were 
incapable of conspicuous success in life, then the more patent 
his inefficiency became, and the quicker he was set on one 
side, the better for his protege's future. 

Essex completely failed in Ireland, and he was ordered 
to answer for his conduct in the arbitrary Court of the Star 
Downfall Chamber. Thereupon Bacon set to work with 
of Essex. Machiavellian skill to turn an apparently unprom- 
ising situation to his own advantage. He sought and ob- 
tained permission to appear at the inquiry into Essex's con- 
duct as one of the Counsel for the Crown. He protested to 
the end that he was really working diplomatically in Essex's 
behalf, but he revealed the secret of his conduct when he 
also plainly told Essex that the queen's favour was after all 
more valuable to him than the earl's. His further guarded 
comment that he loved few persons better than his patron 
struck a hardly less cynical note. 

Essex was ultimately released from imprisonment on pa- 
role; but he then embarked on very violent courses. He sought 
Essex's *° s ^ r U P a rebellion against the queen and her 

death. advisers in London. He placed himself in a posi- 

tion which exposed him to the penalties of high treason. 
Bacon again sought advantage from his patron's errors. He 
again appeared for the Crown at Essex's formal trial on 
the capital charge of treason. His advocacy did much to 
bring Essex's guilt home to the judges. With inhuman 



FRANCIS BACON 225 

coolness Bacon addressed himself to the prisoner, and ex- 
plained to him the heaviness of his offence. Finally Essex was 
condemned to death and was executed on 25th February, 1601. 
Bacon sacrificed all ordinary considerations of honour in 
his treatment of Essex. But his principles of active life 
deprived friendship of meaning for him. The material bene- 
fit to be derived by one man from association with R acon ' a 
another alone entered into his scheme of self- P erfid y- 
advancement, and self-advancement was the only principle 
which he understood to govern ' the active stage of affairs.' 



The death of Elizabeth opened new prospects to Bacon, 
but the story of his life followed its old drift. He naturally 
sought the favour of the new king, James 1. Bacon and 
Naturally he would accommodate his own politi- JamesI - 
cal opinions to those of the new king. The royal influence 
must, if it were possible, be drawn his way, be drawn towards 
him, be pressed into his individual service. Bacon probably at 
the outset had hopes of inducing the king to accept and act 
upon the good counsel that he should offer him, just as at the 
opening of their relations he thought it possible that he 
might lead Essex to take his enlightened advice. It was 
reported that the king was not devoid of large ideas. Bacon, 
who was never a good judge of men, may have credited the 
report. He may not have seen at first that James was with- 
out earnest purpose in life; that the king's intellect was cast 
in a narrow mould; that an extravagant sense of his own 
importance mainly dominated its working. Yet there was this 
excuse for Bacon's misapprehension. James was inquisi- 
tively minded. He was at times willing to listen to the ex- 
position of good principles, however great his disinclination 
to put them into practice. 

P 



226 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

By way of experiment, Bacon at the outset proffered King 
James I. some wise counsel. He repeated his old arguments 
A , . . for toleration in matters of religion. Bacon set 

the king. forth these views as mere ballons d'essai, as straws 
to show him which way the wind blew. As soon as Bacon 
saw that the wind in the royal quarter was not blowing in 
the direction of toleration, he tacked about to win the breeze 
of royal approval some other way. He supported persecu- 
tion. Happily another proposal of his was grateful to the 
new king. Bacon recommended a political union, a political 
amalgamation of the two kingdoms of England and Scot- 
land, of both of which James was now king. It was a wise 
plan in the circumstances, and one entirely congenial to the 
new Scottish monarch of England. James was not slow to 
mark his approval of Bacon's advice on the point, and Bacon's 
material prospects brightened. 

James's reign was a critical period in English history. 
Bacon's depth of intellectual vision enabled him to foresee, 

perhaps more clearly than any other man of his 
political age, the growing danger of a breach between the 

king and the people's representatives in the House 
of Commons. The English people was learning its political 
strength; the English people was learning the value of 
personal liberty, although the mass of them only hazily 
recognised the importance of self-government. Sir Walter 
Ralegh had enunciated the principle that ' in every just state 
some part of the government is or ought to be imparted to 
the people.' There was a growing conviction that government 
for the good of the many, rather than for the good of any 
one man, was essential to the full enjoyment of life. Gov- 
ernment for the good of a sovereign who failed to move in 
the people any personal enthusiasm was certain to prove 
sooner or later an intolerable burden. Bacon acknowledged 



FRANCIS BACON 227 

it to be the duty of a true statesman to seek to reconcile the 
two conflicting forces, the power of the king and the reasona- 
ble claims of the people. He had no faith in democracy; 
he believed in the one-man rule probably as sincerely as he 
believed in any political principle. The future peace of the 
country depended, in Bacon's view, on the king — on his 
power and will to dispense equal justice among his subjects, 
and to conform to his subjects' just wishes on matters affecting 
their personal liberties. The king should be persuaded to 
exert his power and will to this end. But the problem of 
how best to reconcile king and people was not one that could 
be solved by mere assumption of the king's benevolent in- 
tentions. Unless a man championed great principles, and 
applied them to the problem without fear of forfeiting royal 
favour, he wasted breath and ink. Bacon had no intention 
of imperilling his relations with the king, of sacrificing his 
personal chances of preferment. However clearly he may 
have diagnosed the situation, he had not moral fibre enough 
materially to shape its course of development. 



Bacon was eager to derive personal profit from any turn 
of the political wheel. Yet with the singular versatility that 
characterised him, he, amid all the bustle of the Literary 
political world in which he had immersed himself, occupations. 
found time to pursue his true vocation. Before Queen Eliza- 
beth died he had produced the first edition of his Essays, 
those terse observations on life which placed him in the first 
rank of Elizabethan men of letters. 1 They were penetrating 

1 The first edition of the Essays appeared in 1597, and consisted only of 
ten essays together with two pieces called respectively 'Sacred Meditations,' 
and ' Colours of Good and Evil.' This volume was reprinted without altera- 
tion in 1598 and 1606. A revised version which came out in 1612 brought 



228 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

reflections on human nature and conduct which seemed to come 
from a sober observer of affairs, from one of infinitely varied 
experience, from a thinker not unduly biassed by his material 
interests. Revision and enlargement of his Essays constantly 
occupied Bacon's scanty leisure till his death. 

In 1605, two years after James's accession, there appeared 
a far more convincing proof of disinterested devotion to 
things of the mind. Bacon then published his greatest con- 
tribution in English to philosophical literature, his Advance- 
ment of Learning. It was a popular work, treating elo- 
quently of the excellence of knowledge and noting in detail 
the sufficiency and insufficiency of its present state. Bacon 
surveyed fairly and sagaciously all existing departments of 
knowledge, and indicated where progress was most essential. 
The noble volume was intended to prepare the minds of 
readers for the greater venture which absorbed Bacon's 
thoughts, the exposition of a new philosophy, a new instru- 
ment of thought, the Novum Organum. This new instrument 
designed first to enable man to interpret nature and thereby 
realise of what the forces of nature were capable, and then 
to give him the power of adapting those forces to his 
own purposes. In the completion of that great design lay 
Bacon's genuine ambition; from birth to death, political 
office, the rewards of the legal profession, money profits, 
anxious as he was to win them, were means to serve his attain- 
ment of that great end. All material successes in life were 

the number of essays up to thirty-eight. Other editions followed, including 
a Latin translation by the author and translations by English friends into 
both Italian and French. The final edition, the publication of which Bacon 
superintended, is dated 1625 (the year before his death), and supplied as 
many as fifty-eight essays. An addition to the collection, a fragment of an 
essay of 'Fame,' appeared posthumously. This was included by Dr. Will- 
iam Rawley, Bacon's chaplain, into whose hands his master's manuscripts 
passed at his death, in the miscellaneous volume which Rawley edited in 
1657 under the title of Resuscitatio. , 



FRANCIS BACON 229 

in his view crude earthworks which protected from assault 

and preserved intact the citadel of his being. 

Slowly but surely the material recognition, the emoluments 

for which he hungered, came Bacon's way. In 1606, at the 

age of forty-five, he married. His wife was the 

Marriage, 
daughter of an alderman in the city of London, 

and brought him a good dowry. Little is known of Bacon's 
domestic life, and some mystery overhangs its close. He had 
no children, but according to his earliest biographer he was 
a considerate and generous husband. 1 In the last year of his 
life, however, he believed he had serious ground of complaint 
against his wife, and the munificent provision which he made 
for her in the text of his will he in a concluding paragraph, 
' for just and grave causes, utterly revoked and made void, 
leaving her to her right only.' He acquired a love of magnifi- 
cence in his domestic life, which he indulged to an extent 
that caused him pecuniary embarrassments. It was soon 
after he entered the estate of matrimony that he put in order, 
at vast expense, the property at Gorhambury, near St. 
Albans, which his father had acquired, and he built upon 
the land there a new country residence of great dimensions, 
Verulam House. In the decoration and furnishing of the 
mansion he spent far more than he could afford. There he 
maintained a retinue of servants the number of whom, it was 
said, was hardly exceeded in the palace of the king. 

Bacon's material resources rapidly grew after his marriage. 

1 Dr. William Rawley, Bacon's chaplain, in his Life, ed. 1670, p. 6, writes 
with some obvious economy of truth: — 'Neither did the want of children 
detract from his good usage of his consort during the intermarriage; whom 
he prosecuted, with much conjugal love and respect: with many rich gifts, 
and endowments; besides a robe of honour, which he invested her withal: 
which she wore until her dying day, being twenty years and more, after his 
death.' According to Aubrey, after Bacon's death she married her gentle- 
man-usher, Sir Thomas Underhill, and survived the execution of Charles i. 
in 1649. 



230 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

A year later he received his first official promotion. In 1607 
he was made Solicitor-General, a high legal office, and one well 
His first remunerated. He had waited long for such con- 

promotion. S pi CU ous advancement. He was now forty-six 
years old, and the triumph did not cause him undue elation. 
He suffered, he writes, much depression during the months 
that followed. But his ambition was far from satiated. 
Attorney- "^ repetition of the experience happily brought 
General. ki m g rea t er content. Six years later, at fifty- 

two, he was promoted to the more responsible and more highly 
remunerated office of Attorney-General. 



VII 

The breach between the king and his people was meanwhile 
widening. The Commons were reluctant to grant the king's 
Thepoliti- demand for money without exacting guarantees of 
cal peril. honest government — guarantees for the expendi- 
ture of the people's money in a way that should benefit them. 
Such demands and criticism the king warmly resented. He 
was bent on ruling autocratically. He would draw taxes 
from his people at his unfettered will. The hopelessness of 
expecting genuine benefit to the nation from James's exercise 
of authority was now apparent. Had Bacon been a high- 
minded, disinterested politician, withdrawal from the king's 
service would have been the only course open to him; but he 
had an instinctive respect for authority, his private expenses 
were mounting high, and he was at length reaping pecuniary 
rewards in the legal and political spheres. Bacon deliber- 
ately chose the worser way. He abandoned in practice the 
last shreds of his political principles; he gave up all hope 
of bringing about an accommodation on lines of right and 
justice between the king and the people. He made up his 



FRANCIS BACON 231 

mind to remain a servant of the crown, with the single and 
unpraiseworthy end of benefiting his own pocket. 

Tricks and subterfuges, dissimulation, evasion, were thence- 
forth Bacon's political resources. He soon sought assidu- 
ously the favour of the king's new and worthless favourite, 
the Duke of Buckingham. For a fleeting moment he seems 
to have tried to deceive himself, as he had tried to deceive 

himself in the case of Essex and of the king, 

Bacon and 
into the notion that this selfish, unprincipled Bucking- 
courtier might impress a statesmanlike ideal on 
the king's government. Bacon offered Buckingham some 
advice under this misconception. But Bacon quickly recog- 
nised his error. The good counsel was not repeated. He 
finally abandoned himself exclusively to the language of un- 
blushing adulation in his intercourse with the favourite in 
order to benefit by the favourite's influence. 

Bacon's policy gained him all the success that he could 
have looked for. A greater promotion than any he had en- 
joyed soon befell him. The Lord Keepership of Lord 
the Great Seal, the highest legal office, to which Kee P er - 
belonged the functions of the Lord Chancellor, became vacant. 
It was the post which Bacon's father had filled, and the son 
proposed himself to Buckingham as a candidate. Bacon 
secured, in 1617, the lofty dignity on the sole ground that the 
favourite thought he might prove a useful, subservient tool. 
But a rough justice governed the political world even in James 
i.'s reign. Bacon's elevation to the high office proved his ruin. 

Bacon was now not only the foremost judge in the land, 
but was also chief member of the King's Council. LordVeru- 
He had become, however, the mere creature of the viscount 
crown, and all his political intelligence he suffered St - -^ban- 
to run to waste. The favourite, Buckingham, was supreme 
with the king, and Bacon played a very subordinate part 



232 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

in discussions of high policy. He obsequiously assented 
to measures which he knew to be disastrous, and even sub- 
mitted meekly to the personal humiliations which subservience 
to Buckingham — an exacting master — required. For a time 
his pusillanimity continued to bring rewards. In 1618 he was 
raised to the peerage, as Baron Verulam; in 1619 he ex- 
changed, without alteration of function, the title of Lord 
Keeper of the Great Seal for the more dignified style of 
Lord High Chancellor of England. Two years later he 
was advanced to a higher rank of nobility as Viscount St. 
Alban. His paternal estate, on which he had built his sump- 
tuous pleasure-house, lay near the city of St. Albans, and 
that city occupied the site of the Roman city of Verulamium. 
He felt a scholar's pride in associating his name with a relic 
of ancient Rome. 

It may be admitted that Bacon's quick intelligence ren- 
dered him a very efficient and rapid judge in his court, the 
Hisiudi- Court of Chancery. He rapidly cleared off ar- 
cml work. rears f business, and seems to have done as a 
rule substantial justice to suitors. But he was not, even 
in his own court, his own master. The favourite, Bucking- 
ham, inundated him with letters requesting him to show 
favour to friends of his who were interested in causes in 
Bacon's court. Bacon's moral sense was too weak to permit 
resistance to the favourite's insolent demands. 

Bacon's moral perception was indeed blurred past recov- 
ery. Servility to the king and his favourite had obvious 

dangers, of which he failed to take note. Resent- 
The ap- • 1 i 

preaching ment was rising in the country against the royal 

power, and that rebellious sentiment was certain 

sooner or later to threaten with disaster those who for worldly 

gain bartered their souls to the king and his minion. The 

wheel was coming full circle. 



FRANCIS BACON 233 



VIII 

Yet so full of contradiction is Bacon's career, that it was 

when he stood beneath the shadow of the ruin which was to 

destroy his worldly fortune and repute that he 

The Novum 
crowned the edifice of his philosophical ambition Organum, 

which was to bring him imperishable glory. 
In 1620 he published his elaborate Latin treatise, Novum 
Organum. It is only a fragment — an unfinished second in- 
stalment — of that projected encyclopaedia in which he de- 
signed to unfold the innermost secrets of nature. But such 
as it is, the Novum Organum is the final statement of his 
philosophic and scientific position. It expounds ' the new 
instrument,' the logical method of induction whereby nature 
was thenceforth to be rightly questioned, and her replies to 
be rightly interpreted. The book is the citadel of Bacon's 
philosophic system. To this exposition of his ultimate aim in 
life Bacon justly attached the highest importance. Twelve 
times amid the bustle of public business had he rewritten the 
ample treatise before he ventured on its publication. For 
twelve years, amid all the preoccupation of his public career, 
a draft of the volume had never been far from his hand. 

The Novum Organum was obsequiously dedicated to the 
king. A very few months later, the irony of fate was finally 

to bring home to Bacon the error of dividing his 

& & The wrath 

allegiance between intellectual ideals and worldly of Parlia- 

honours and riches. For eight years James had 

suspended the sittings of Parliament. But money difficulties 

were growing desperate. At length the king resolved on the 

perilous device of making a fresh appeal to Parliament to 

extricate him from his embarrassments. Bacon was well 



234 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

aware of the exasperated state of public feeling, but with 
a curiously mistaken faith in himself and in his reputation, 
he deemed his own position perfectly secure. When Parlia- 
ment met he discovered his error. At first he sought to 
close his eyes to the true character of the crisis, but they 
were soon rudely opened. His enemies were numerous in 
the House of Commons, and were in no gentle mood. 

Heated censure was passed on Bacon and on others of the 
king's associates as soon as the session opened. Quickly a 

specific charge was brought against him. Two 
The charge 

of corrup- petitions were presented to the House of Com- 
tion. , , . -i . 

mons by suitors in Bacon s court charging mm 

with taking bribes in his court, of corrupting justice. The 
charge was undisguised. There was no chance of misap- 
prehending its gravity, but with characteristic insensibility, 
Bacon affected to regard the attack as some puerile outcome 
of spite. He asserted that it was unworthy of consideration. 
The House of Commons, however, referred the complaints to 
the House of Lords, and the Lords took the matter too 
seriously to leave Bacon longer in doubt of his danger. 

As soon as the scales dropped from his eyes, the shock 
unmanned him. He fell ill, and was unable to leave his 
Bacon's house. Fresh charges of corrupting justice were 

collapse. brought against him, and he was called upon for 
an answer. Seeking and obtaining an interview with the 
king, he confessed to his sovereign that he had taken presents 
from suitors, but he solemnly asseverated that he had received 
none before the cause was practically decided. He denied 
that gifts had ever led him to pervert justice. Unluckily, 
evidence was forthcoming that at any rate he took a bribe 
while one cause was pending. 

As soon as he studied the details of the indictment, Bacon 
perceived that defence was impossible, and his failing nerve 



FRANCIS BACON 235 

allowed him to do no more than throw himself on the mercy 

of his peers. His accusers pressed for a definite answer to 

the accusation, but he gave none. He declined to 

His con- 
enter into details. He declared in writing that fession of 

guilt, 
he was heartily sorry and truly penitent for the 

corruption and neglect of which he confessed himself guilty. 

The story is a pitiful one. Bacon, reduced to the last 
stage of nervous prostration, figures in a most ignoble light 
throughout the proceedings. He turned his back to the 
smiter in a paroxysm of fear. On the 1 st of His puIus h- 
May 1621 he was dismissed from his office of ment - 
Lord Chancellor, and two days later, in his absence through 
illness, sentence was pronounced upon him by the House of 
Lords. He was ordered to pay a fine of .£40,000 and to be 
imprisoned for life, and was declared incapable of holding 
any office in the State. 

Thus ended in deep disgrace Bacon's active career. The 
king humanely relieved him of his punishment, and he was 
set free with the heavy fine unpaid. He retired H ; s re ti re - 
from London to his house at St. Albans. Driven ment - 
from public life, he naturally devoted himself to literature 
and science — to those spheres of labour which he believed 
himself brought into the world to pursue. Although his 
health was broken, his intellect was unimpaired His literary 
by his ruin, and he engaged with renewed energy jP Q ^^~ 
in literary composition, in philosophical specula- tlon - 
tion, and in scientific experiment. The first fruit of his en- 
forced withdrawal from official business was a rapidly written 
monograph on Henry vii. He essayed history, he boldly 
said, because, being deprived of the opportunity of doing his 
country ' service,' ' it remained to him to do it honour.' His 
Reign of King Henry VII. is a vivid historical picture, inde- 
pendent in tone and of substantial accuracy. More germane 



236 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

to his previous labours was a first instalment of a large 
collection of scientific facts and observations, which he pub- 
lished in Latin in the same year as his account of Henry vn. 
(1622), under the title Historia Naturalis et Experimentalis 
ad Condendam Philosophiam (Natural and Experimental His- 
tory for the Foundation of Philosophy). Next year there 
followed De Augmentis Scientiarum, an enlarged version in 
Latin of his Advancement of Learning. 

To the last Bacon, with characteristic perversity, declined 
to realise the significance of his humiliation. Of the sen- 
ilis vain tence passed upon him, he remarked before he 
hblit - died, ' It was the justest censure in Parliament 
tion. ^at was these t wo hundred years.' But he pre- 

faced this opinion with the qualification, ' I was the justest 
judge that was in England these fifty years.' As his life 
was closing, he cherished wild hopes of regaining the king's 
favour, even of returning to the domain of politics out of 
which he had passed so ignominiously. He offered to draw 
up a Digest of the Law, to codify the Law. He still ad- 
dressed his patron of the past, King James, with the same 
adulation as of old. But fortunately for himself these ill- 
conceived efforts failed. When Charles 1. came to the throne 
on the death of his father James 1., Bacon imagined that a 
new opportunity was opened to him, and he petitioned for 
that full pardon which would have enabled him to take his 
seat in Parliament. But his advances were then for a last 
time brusquely repulsed. 

IX 

Although Bacon's health was shattered and he could not 
yield himself in patience to exclusion from the public stage 

of affairs, his scientific enthusiasm still ran high. 
His death. 

The immediate cause of his death was an ad- 
venture inspired by scientific curiosity. At the end of March 



FRANCIS BACON 237 

1626, being near Highgate, on a snowy day, he left his 
coach to collect snow with which he meant to stuff a hen in 
order to observe the effect of cold on the preservation of its 
flesh. 1 He was thus a pioneer of the art of refrigeration, 
of preserving food by means of cold storage. In performing 
the experiment he caught a chill and took refuge in the 
house of a neighbouring friend, the art-connoisseur, Lord 
Arundel, who happened to be from home. Bacon was sixty- 
five years old, and his constitution could bear no new strain. 
At Lord Arundel's house he died on the 9th of April of 
the disease now known as bronchitis. He was buried at St. 
Michael's Church, St. Albans, where his tomb may still be 
visited. The monument represents him elaborately attired 

1 This circumstance rests on the testimony of the philosopher Hobbes, 
who was thirty-eight years old at the time of Bacon's death, and was in con- 
stant personal intercourse with him during the previous ten years. ITobbes's 
story, which Aubrey took down from his lips and incorporated in his life of 
Bacon (cf. Aubrey's Lives, vol. ii. part ii. p. 602), runs as follows: — 'The 
cause of his Lordship's death was trying an experiment. As he was taking an 
aire in a coach with Dr. Witherborne (a Scotchman, Physician to the King) 
towards Highgate, snow lay on the ground, and it came into my Lord's 
thoughts, why flesh might not be preserved in snow as in salt. They were 
resolved they would try the experiment presently. They alighted out of 
the coach, and went into a poore woman's house at the bottome of Highgate 
Hill, and bought a hen, and made the woman exenterate it, and then stuffed 
the bodie with snow, and my Lord did help to doe it himselfe. The snow 
so chilled him, that he immediately fell so extremely ill, that he could not 
returne to his lodgings (at Graye's Inne) but went to the Earl of Arundell's 
house at Highgate, where they putt him into a good bed warmed with a 
panne, but it was a damp bed that had not been layn in about a yeare before, 
which gave him such a cold that in 2 or 3 dayes he dyed of suffocation.' 
Bacon carried the frozen hen with him to Lord Arundel's house and lived 
long enough to assure himself that his experiment was successful. Lord 
Arundel happened to be absent from home on Bacon's arrival, and Bacon 
managed, before he understood the fatal character of his illness, to dictate 
a letter — the last words which he is known to have uttered — to his host 
explaining the situation. 'I was likely to have had the fortune,' the letter 
began, ' of Caius Plinius the elder, who lost his life by trying an experiment 
about the burning of the mountain Vesuvius. For I was also desirous to try 
an experiment or two, touching the conservation and induration of bodies. 
As for the experiment itself, it succeeded excellently well.' ('A Collection 
of Letters made by Sr. Tobie Mathews, Kt., 1660,' p. 57.) 



238 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

and seated in a contemplative attitude. It was set up by a 
loving disciple, Sir Thomas Meautys. A Latin inscription, 
which was penned by another admirer, Sir Henry Wotton, 
may be rendered in English thus: — 

'Thus was wont to sit Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, Vis- 
count St. Albans, (or to call him by his more illustrious titles) 
the light of the sciences, the standard of eloquence, who, after he 
had discovered all the secrets of natural and moral philosophy, 
fulfilled nature's law of dissolution, a.d. 1626, aged 66. — To the 
memory of so eminent a man Thomas Meautys, a disciple in life, 
an admirer in death, set up this monument.' 

' For my name and memory,' Bacon wrote in his will, 
' I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign 
His nations and the next ages.' These legatees have 

character. no ^ p rove( j themselves negligent of the trust that 
Bacon reposed in them; yet, when his personal career is 
surveyed, it is impossible for man's charitable speeches or 
foreign nations or the next ages to apply to it the language 
of eulogy. An unparalleled faith in himself, a blind self- 
confidence, is the most striking feature of his personal char- 
acter. It justified in his mind acts on his part which defied 
every law of morality. That characteristic may have been 
partly due to his early training. The self-righteous creed 
which his narrowly Puritan mother implanted in him was 
responsible for much. The Calvinistic doctrine of predestina- 
tion and election gave him, unconsciously, at the outset, con- 
fidence in his eternal salvation, whatever his personal conduct 
in life. But, if this were the result of his mother's teaching, 
his father, who was immersed in the politics of the day, 
made him familiar as a boy with all the Machiavellian de- 
vices, the crooked tricks of policy and intrigue which infected 
the political society of Queen Elizabeth's court. While these 
two influences — his mother's superstition and his father's 



FRANCIS BACON 239 

crafty worldliness — were playing on his receptive mind, a 
third came from his own individuality. He grew convinced 
of the possession of exceptional intellectual power which, if 
properly applied, would revolutionise man's relations with 
nature and reveal to him her hidden secrets. As years ad- 
vanced, he realised that material wealth and position were 
needful to him if he were to attain the goal of his intellectual 

ambition. With a moral sense weakened by his 

His neglect 
early associations with Calvinism on the one hand of moral 

t . i -t i i i functions. 

and with utilitarianism on the other, he was 

unable to recognise any justice in moral obstacles intervening 
between him and that material prosperity which was essential, 
in his belief, to the fulfilment of his intellectual designs. 
The higher he advanced in the material world, the more inde- 
pendent he became of the conventional distinctions between 
right and wrong. His mighty fall teaches the useful lesson 
that intellectual genius, however commanding, never justifies 
breaches of those eternal moral laws which are binding on 
men of great mental endowments equally with men of moder- 
ate or small intellectual capacities. 

Nor in the practical affairs of life did Bacon have at com- 
mand that ordinary faculty, that savoir faire, which is often 

to be met with in men of smaller capacity, and 

His want 

can alone ensure success or prosperity. In money of savoir 

faire. 
matters his carelessness was abnormal, even among 

men of genius. Whether his resources were small or great, 
his expenditure was always in excess of them. He was 
through life in bondage to money-lenders, yet he never hesi- 
tated to increase his outlay and his indebtedness. He saw 
his servants robbing him, but never raised a word in protest. 
By a will which he drew up in the year before he died, he 
was munificent in gifts, not merely to friends, retainers, and 
the poor, but to public institutions, which he hoped to render 



240 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

more efficient in public service. Yet when all his assets were 
realised, the amount was only sufficient to defray two-thirds 
of his debts, and none of his magnanimous bequests took 
effect. With his thoughts concentrated on his intellectual 
ambitions, he neglected, too, the study of the men with whom 
he worked. Although human nature had revealed to him 
many of its secrets, and he could disclose them in literature 
with rare incisiveness, he failed to read character in the 
individual men with whom chance brought him into everyday 
association. He misunderstood Essex; he misunderstood 
James i. ; he misunderstood Buckingham; his wife and his 
servants deceived him. 



In the conduct of his affairs, as in the management of men, 
Bacon stands forth as a pitiable failure. It is only in his 
His true scientific and his literary achievements that he is 

greatness. great, but there few have been greater. 

Bacon's mind was a typical product of the European 
Renaissance. His intellectual interests embraced every 
His literary t°pi c > ms writings touched almost every sub j ect 
versatility. of intellectual study. To each he brought the 
same eager curiosity and efficient insight. He is the despair 
of the modern specialist. He is historian, essayist, logician, 
legal writer, philosophical speculator, writer on science in 
every branch. 

At heart Bacon was a scholar scorning the applause which 
the popular writer covets. It is curious to note that he 
His rever- se ^ a higher value on his skill as a writer of Latin 
th^Latiii than on n * s s k*^ as a wr ' ter °f English. Latin 
tongue. jj e regarded as the language of the learned of 

every nationality, and consequently books written in Latin 
were addressed to his only fit audience, the learned society of 



FRANCIS BACON 241 

the whole civilised globe. English writings, on the other 

hand, could alone appeal to the (in his day) comparatively 

few persons of intelligence who understood that tongue. 

Latin was for him the universal language. English books 

could never, he said, be citizens of the world. 

So convinced was he of the insularity of his own tongue 

that at the end of his life he deplored that he had wasted 

time in writing books in English. He hoped all 

His con- 
his works might be translated into Latin, so that tempt for 

they might live for posterity. Miscalculation of 
his powers governed a large part of Bacon's life, and find 
signal illustration in this regret that he should have written 
in English rather than in Latin. For it is not to his Latin 
works, nor to the Latin translations of his English works, 
that he owes the main part of his immortality. He lives as a 
speculator in philosophy, as one who sought a great intel- 
lectual goal; but he lives equally as a great master of the 
English tongue which he despised. 

For terseness and pithiness of expression there is nothing 
in English to match Bacon's style in the Essays. His reflec- 
tions on human life which he embodied there, his 

The style 
comments on human nature, especially on human of his 

.... _ r , Essays. 

infirmities, owe most of their force to the stimu- 
lating vigour which he breathed into English words. No man 
has proved himself a greater master of the pregnant 
apophthegm in any language, not even in the French lan- 
guage, which far more readily lends itself to aphorism. 

Weighty wisdom, phrased with that point and brevity 
which only a master of style could command, is scattered 

through all the essays, and many sentences have 

Phrases 
become proverbial. It is the essay ' Of Mar- from the 

Essays. 
riage and Single Life ' that begins : ' He that 

hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for 

P 



242 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

they are impediments to great enterprises either of virtue or 
mischief.' That ' of Parents and Children ' has ' Children 
sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter; they 
increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance 
of death.' Of ' Building ' he made the prudent and witty 
remark: ' Houses are built to live in and not to look on; 
therefore let use be preferred before uniformity, except where 
both may be had. Leave goodly fabrics of houses for beauty 
only to the enchanted palaces of the poets who build them 
with small cost.' Equally notable are such sentences as 
these : — ' A crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery 
of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is no 
love.' On the scriptural proverb about riches making them- 
selves wings, Bacon grafted the practical wisdom: ' Riches 
have wings and sometimes they fly away of themselves, 
sometimes they must be set flying to bring in more.' Equally 
penetrating are these aphoristic deliverances: — ' Some books 
are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be 
chewed and digested' (Essay i., of 'Studies'). 'A little 
philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in 
philosophy bringeth man's mind about to religion ' (Essay 
xvi., of ' Atheism '). Sometimes he uses very homely language 
with singular effect. ' Money is like muck — not good except 
it be spread' (Essay xv., of 'Seditions and Troubles'). 
Thus he summarised a warning which he elsewhere elabor- 
ately phrased, that it is an evil hour for a State when its 
treasure and money are gathered into a few hands. 

But Bacon's style is varied. The pithy terseness of his 
essays is not present in all his works. In addition to his terse 
Hismaies- mode of English expression, he had at command a 
tic style. j.jgjj exu berance and floridity abounding in rhetori- 
cal ornament and illustration. He professed indifference to 
mere questions of form in composition. But whatever his 



FRANCIS BACON 243 

theoretical view of style, he was a singularly careful writer, 
and his philosophical English writings — his Advancement of 
Learning especially — are as notable for the largeness of their 
vocabulary, the richness of their illustration, and the rhyth- 
mical flow of their sentences as for their philosophic sugges- 
tiveness. 

All that Bacon wrote bore witness to his weighty and 
robust intellect, but his style was coloured not merely by 
intellectual strength, but by imaginative insight. So much 
imaginative power, indeed, underlay his majestic phraseology 
and his illuminating metaphors, that Shelley in his eloquent 
Defence of Poetry figuratively called him a poet. 1 It is only 
figuratively that Bacon could be called a poet. He is only a 
poet in the sense that every great thinker and observer of 
nature has a certain faculty of imagination. But his faculty 
of imagination is the thinker's faculty, which is mainly the 
fruit of intellect. The great poet's faculty of imagination, 
which is mainly the fruit of emotion, was denied Bacon. 
Poetry in its strict sense, the modulated harmony of verse, 
the emotional sympathy which seeks expression in lyric or 
drama, was out of his range. 

The writing of verse was probably the only branch of 

intellectual endeavour which was beyond Bacon's grasp. He 

was ambitious to try his hand at every literary 

His verse, 
exercise. At times he tried to turn a stanza. The 

results are unworthy of notice. Bacon's acknowledged 

attempts at formal poetry are uncouth and lumbering; they 

attest congenital unfitness for that mode of expression. 

1 Shelley fancifully endeavours to identify poets and philosophers. ' The 
distinctions/ he writes, 'between philosophers and poets have been antici- 
pated. Plato was essentially a poet. . . . Lord Bacon was a poet. His 
language has a sweet and majestic rhythm, which satisfies the sense no less 
than the almost superhuman wisdom of his philosophy satisfies the intel- 
lect. . . .Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton . . . are philosophers of 
the very loftiest power.' — Defence of Poetry, ed. A. S. Cook, pp. 9-10. 



244 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

Strange arguments have indeed been adduced to credit Bacon 
with those supreme embodiments of all poetic excellence — 
Shakespeare's plays. The number of works that Bacon 
claimed to have penned, when combined with the occupations 
of his professional career, so filled every nook and cranny of 
his adult time, that on no showing was leisure available for 
the conquest of vast fields of poetry and drama. But whoever 
harbours the delusion that Bacon was responsible for any- 
thing that came from Shakespeare's pen, should examine 
Bacon's versified paraphrase of Certaine Psalmes which he 
published in a volume the year before he died. He dedicated 
the book to the poet George Herbert, in terms which attest, 
despite some conventional self-depreciation, the store he set 
by this poor experiment. The work represents the whole of 
the extant metrical efforts which came, without possibility of 
dispute, from Bacon's pen. If the reader of that volume be 
not promptly disabused of the heresy that any Shakes- 
pearian touch is discernible in the clumsy and crude dog- 
gerel, he deserves to be condemned to pass the rest of his 
days with no other literary company to minister to his literary 
cravings than this ' Translation of Certaine Psalmes into 
English Verse, by the Right Honourable Francis, Lo. Veru- 
lam, Viscount St. Alban.' 1 

1 Despite his incapacity for verse Bacon, like many smaller men, seems 
to have assiduously courted the muse in private. Writing to a poetic friend, 
Sir John Davies, in 1603, he numbers himself among ' concealed poets,' and 
the gossiping biographer, Aubrey, applies to him the same designation. 
Apart from his verse-rendering of the psalms, he has only been credited on 
any sane grounds with two pieces of verse, and to one of these he has cer- 
tainly no title. The moralising jingle, beginning 'The man of life up- 
right,' figures in many seventeenth-century manuscript miscellanies of 
verse as ' Verses made by Mr. Francis Bacon,' but its true author was Thomas 
Campion (cf. Poems, ed. A. H. Bullen, p. 20). The other poetic performance 
assigned to Bacon is variously called 'The World,' 'The Bubble,' and 'On 
Man's Mortality.' It opens with the lines, 

' The world's a bubble, and the life of man 
Less than a span,! 



FRANCIS BACON 245 

XI 

It is Bacon's scientific or philosophic labour which forms 
the apex of his history. Although he wrote many scattered 

treatises which dealt in detail with scientific phe- 

His 

nomena, Bacon's scientific and philosophic aims philosophic 

works. 

can best be deduced from his two great works, 
the Advancement of Learning, which was written in English, 
and the Novum Organum, which was written in Latin. The 
first, which was greatly amplified in a Latin paraphrase (at 
least one-third being new matter) called De Augmentis Scien- 
tiarum, is a summary survey in English of all knowledge. 
The second work, the Latin Novum Organum, is a fragment 
of Bacon's full exposition of his scientific system; it is the 
only part of it that he completed, and mainly describes his 
inductive method of scientific investigation. 

Bacon's attitude to science rests on the convictions that 
man's true function in life is to act as the interpreter of 

nature; that truth cannot be derived from author- 

His atti- 

ity, but from man's experience and experiments ; tude to 

science. 

that knowledge is the fruit of experience and 

experiment. Bacon's philosophic writings have for their main 

and was first printed after Bacon's death in 1629 in Thomas Farnaby's 
FlorUegium Epigrammaticum Grcecorum, a Latin translation of selections 
from the Greek Anthology. The poem in question is the only English verse 
in Farnaby's book, and is ascribed by him on hazy grounds to ' Lord 
Verulam.' It is a rendering of the epigram in the Palatine Anthology, x. 359, 
which is sometimes ^assigned to Posidippus and sometimes to Crates (e/. 
Mackail's Greek Anthology, sect. xii. No. xxxix. p. 278). The English lines, 
the authorship of which remains uncertain, paraphrase the Greek freely 
and effectively, but whoever may be their author, they cannot be ranked 
among original compositions. A copy was found among Sir Henry Wotton's 
papers, and printed in the Reliquiae Wottoniano? (1651) above the signature 
'Ignoto.' They were also put to the credit, in early manuscript copies, 
of Donne, of 'Henry Harrington,' and of 'R. W.' The Greek epigram, it 
is interesting to note, was a favourite with Elizabethan versifiers. English 
renderings are extant by Nicolas Grimald (in Tottel's Songes and Sonnettes, 
ed. Arber, p. 109), by Puttonham (in Arte of English Poesie, ed. Arber, 
p. 214), by Sir John Beaumont, and others. 



246 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

object the establishment of a trustworthy system whereby 
nature may be interpreted by man, and brought into his 
service, whereby the study of natural science may be set on 
a firm and fruitful foundation. 

The first aim was to overthrow the deductive methods 
of Aristotle and mediaeval schoolmen, by virtue of which it 

had been customary before Bacon's time to seek 
His opposi- 
tion to to prove preconceived theories without reference 
Aristotle. 

to actual fact or experience. The formal logic of 

the syllogism was in Bacon's eyes barren verbiage. By such 
means elaborate conclusions were reached, which were never 
tested by observation and experiment, although if they were 
so tested, they would be summarily confuted. The deductive 
conclusion that bodies fall to the ground at a velocity pro- 
portioned to their weight is one of the simple fallacies which 
were universally accepted before observation and experiment 
were summoned to test its truth and brought the law of 
gravitation into being. 

Bacon ranks as the English champion of the method 
of inductive reasoning. It was well known to earlier logicians 
Bacon on that an enumeration of phenomena offered mate- 
induction. r j a j f or generalisation, but Bacon's predecessors 
were content with a simple and uncritical enumeration of 
such facts as happened to come under their notice, and their 
mode of generalising was valueless and futile, because the 
foundations were unsound as often as they were sound. 
Bacon argued that reports of isolated facts were to be 
accumulated, and were then to be systematically tested by 
means of observation and experiment. Phenomena were to be 
carefully selected and arranged. There were to be elimi- 
nations and rejections of evidence. From the assemblage and 
codification of tested facts alone were conclusions to be drawn. 

On man's inability, without careful training, to distinguish 



FRANCIS BACON 247 

between fact and fiction, Bacon laid especial stress. Man's 
powers were rarely in a condition to report on phenomena 
profitably or faithfully. Congenital prejudice was f 

first to be allowed for and counteracted. Man mental 

prejudices. 

was liable to misapprehensions of what came 
within the range of his observation, owing to inadequate con- 
trol of the senses and emotions. 

To an analysis of the main defects in the operation of the 
human intellect in its search after truth Bacon devoted much 
attention. The mind of man, Bacon pointed out, was haunted 
by phantoms, and exorcism of these phantoms was needful 
before reason was secure in her dominion of the mind. Bacon 
called the phantoms of the mind idols — idola, from the 
Greek word €i8wAa, phantoms or images. Idols or idola 
were, in Bacon's terminology, the antitheses of ideas, the 
sound fruit of thought. Bacon finally reduced the idols or 
phantoms which infested man's mind to four classes — idols 
of the tribe, the cave, the market-place, and the theatre. 1 

Idols of the tribe are inherent habits of mind common 
to all the human tribe, such as the tendency to put more 
faith in one affirmative instance of success than in The doctrine 
any number of negative instances of failure. An ofldols - 
extraordinary cure is effected by means of some drug, and 
few people stop to inquire how often the drug has failed, 
or whether the cure was due to some cause other than the 
administration of this particular drug. Idols of the cave 
(a conception which is borrowed from Plato's Republic) are 
the prejudices of the individual person when he is imprisoned 

1 Sections xxxviii.-lxviii. of the Novum Organum expound Bacon's 'doc- 
trine of the idols ' in its final shape. A first imperfect draft of the doctrine 
appears in the Advancement of Learning (Bk. ii.), and is expanded in the 
De Augmentis and in the Latin tracts Valerius Terminus and Partis Secunda? 
Delineatio, but the Novum Organum is the locus classicus for the exposition 
of the doctrine. 



248 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

in the cave of his own idiosyncrasy. One man's natural habit 
inclines to exaggeration of statement, while another man's 
habit inclines to underestimation of the importance of what 
he sees or hears. The third idol — of the market-place — is 
the disposition to become the slave of phrases and words 
which are constantly heard in ordinary traffic, the market- 
place of life. Mere words or phrases, when echoed in the 
market-place of life, apart from the circumstances that give 
them their full significance, breed irrational misconception. 
Words like Free-trade or Protection, to take a modern example, 
fall within the scope of Bacon's doctrine; they easily become 
verbal fetiches, and the things of which they are mere market- 
place tokens are left out of account. Idols of the theatre 
mean those tendencies on the part of masses of men and 
women to put faith in everything that is said very dogmati- 
cally, as actors are wont to speak from the stage of the 
theatre. Philosophies or religions, which rest on specious 
dogmas, have the character, in Bacon's judgment, of stage- 
plays which delude an ignorant audience into accepting the 
artificial, unreal scene for nature, by virtue of over-empha- 
sised speech and action. 

Man's vision must be purged from prejudices, whether 

they are inherited or spring from environment, before he 

can fully grasp the truth. The dry light of rea- 

light of son is the only illuminant which permits man to 

reason. 

see clearly phenomena as they are; only when 

idols are dispersed does the dry light burn with effectual fire. 



xn 

Bacon claimed that all knowledge lay within the scope of 
man's enfranchised mind. The inductive system was to ar- 
rive ultimately at the cause, not only of scientific facts and 



FRANCIS BACON 249 

conditions, but of moral, political, and spiritual facts and 
conditions. He refused to believe that any limits were 

set beyond which human intellect when clarified _ ,. . 

J The hmit- 

and purified could not penetrate. He argued less possi- 
bilities of 
that, however far we may think we have advanced man's 

i i j • lL . , knowledge. 

in knowledge or science, there is always more 

beyond, and that the tracts lying beyond our present gaze 
will in due course of time come within the range of a purified 
intellectual vision. There were no bounds to what human 
thought might accomplish. To other children of the Renais- 
sance the same sanguine faith had come, but none gave such 
emphatic voice to it as Bacon. 

But Bacon did not go far along the road that he had 
marked out for himself. His great system of knowledge 
was never completed. He was always looking The f _ 
forward to the time when, having exhausted his j^w* cter 
study of physics, he should proceed to the study of ms work, 
of metaphysics — the things above physics, spiritual things — 
but metaphysics never came within his view, nor did he, 
to speak truth, do much more than touch the fringe of 
physical investigation. He failed to keep himself abreast of 
the physical knowledge of his day, and some of His ; _ 
his guesses at scientific truth strike the modern ran ce of 

reader as childish. He knew nothing of Harvey's P?rary 

° J advances 

discovery of the circulation of the blood, which in science. 

that great physician enunciated in his lectures to his students 
fully ten years before Bacon died. He knew nothing of 
Napier's invention of logarithms, nor of Kepler's mathemati- 
cal calculations, which set the science of astronomy on a 
just footing. He ignored the researches of his own fellow- 
countryman, William Gilbert, in the new science of the 
magnet. Nor, apparently, was he acquainted with the vast 
series of scientific discoveries, including the thermometer and 



250 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

the telescope, which were due to the genius of the greatest 
of his scientific contemporaries, Galileo. 

It is doubtful whether Bacon, despite his intuitive grasp 
of scientific principle, had any genuine aptitude for the prac- 
tical work of scientific research. News of Galileo's discovery 
of Jupiter's satellites reached him, but he did not apprehend 
its significance. Galileo's final confirmation of the Copernican 
system of astronomy, which proved that the earth went round 
the sun, never obtained Bacon's recognition. He adhered to 
the geocentric theory of Ptolemy, which was long accepted 
universally, that the earth was the fixed centre of the uni- 
verse, round which sun and planets revolved. He even disre- 
spectfully referred to those who insisted on the earth's 
movement round the sun as ' these mad carmen which drive 
the earth about.' 

Yet Bacon's spacious intuition enabled him to strike out 
a few shrewd scientific observations that anticipated re- 
Hisown searches of the future. He described heat as a 
discoveries. mo J e f motion, and light as requiring time for 
its transmission. Of the atomic theory of matter he had, too, 
a shadowy glimpse. He even vaguely suggested some valua- 
ble mechanical devices which are now in vogue. In a descrip- 
tion of instruments for the transference of sound, he fore- 
shadowed the invention of speaking-tubes and telephones; 
and he died, as we have seen, in an endeavour to test a per- 
fectly accurate theory of refrigeration. 

His greatness in the history of science does not, however, 
consist in the details of his scientific study, nor in his appli- 
His place cations of science to practical life, nor in his per- 
historyof sonal aptitude for scientific research, but rather 
science. j n ^g j m p e tus which his advocacy of inductive and 

experimental methods gave to future scientific investigation. 
As he himself said, he rang the bell which called the other 



FRANCIS BACON 251 

wits together. He first indicated the practical efficiency of 
scientific induction, and although succeeding experimenters in 
science may have been barely conscious of their indebted- 
ness to him, yet their work owes its value to the logical method 
which he brought into vogue. 



XIII 

Although he failed to appreciate the value of the scientific 
investigations of his contemporaries, Bacon preached with 
enthusiasm the crying need of practical research 
if his prophecy of the future of science were to merit of 
be realised. His mind frequently contemplated 
the organisation, the endowment and equipment of research 
in every branch of science, theoretical or practical. A 
great palace of invention, a great temple of science, was 
one of his dreams. In later life he amused himself by 
describing, in fanciful language, what form such a palace 
might take in imaginary conditions. The sketch is one of 
the most charming of his writings. He called it The New 
Atlantis. It was never finished, and the fragment was not 
published in his lifetime. 

Bacon intended the work to fulfil two objects. First he 
sought to describe an imaginary college, which should be 
instituted for the purpose of interpreting nature, The New 
and of producing great and marvellous works for Atlanhs - 
the benefit of men. In the second place, he proposed to 
frame an ideal body of laws for a commonwealth. The 
second part was not begun. The only portion of the treatise 
that exists deals, after the manner of a work of fiction, with 
an ideal endowment of scientific research. It shows Bacon 
to advantage as a writer of orderly and dignified English, and 



252 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

embodies, in a short compass, as many of Bacon's personal 
convictions and ideals as any of his compositions. 

In the history of the English Renaissance, the New At- 
lantis fills at the same time an important place. It is in a 
sense the epilogue of the drama. It is the latest 

The m 

epilogue pronouncement in the endeavour of the Renais- 
Renaissance sance to realise perfection in human affairs. The 
cry for the regeneration of the race found voice 
— for the first time in England under the spell of the Re- 
naissance — in More's Utopia. More pleaded for the recogni- 
tion of equal social rights for all reasoning men. Bacon's 
New Atlantis was a sequal to More's Utopia, but it sharply 
contrasted with it in conception. Since More wrote the 
Utopia time had taught thinkers of the Renaissance to believe 
that man's ultimate regeneration and perfectibility depended 
primarily not on reform of laws of property or on social 
revolution, but on the progress of science and the regulation 
of human life by the scientific spirit. Bacon's New Atlantis 
proclaimed with almost romantic enthusiasm that scientific 
method alone was the ladder by which man was to ascend 
to perfect living. 

The opening page of Bacon's scientific romance introduces 
us abruptly to a boatload of mariners on their voyage from 
The story P eru D y tne South Pacific Sea to China and Japan. 
Atlant£i eW Storms delay them, and their food-supplies fail, 
Utopia. jj ut happily they reach land, the existence of 

which they had not suspected. The inhabitants, after careful 
inquiry, permit the castaways to disembark. The land proves 
to be the island of Ben Salem, to which the Christian religion 
had been divinely revealed at a very early period. The 
islanders practise all civic virtues, especially the virtue of 
hospitality. The visitors are royally entertained. It is 
curious to note that Bacon, zealous for efficiency of organisa- 



FRANCIS BACON 253 

tion in small things as in great, points out how the servants 
refused with amused contempt the offer of gifts of money 
from the strange travellers on whom they were directed to 
wait; the servants deemed it (such was their disinterested and 
virtuous faith in logic) dishonour to be twice paid for their 
labours — by their employers and by their employers' guests. 

The customs of the people of this unknown island are 
charmingly described, and ultimately the travellers are intro- 
duced to the chief and predominating feature of The jm. 
the island, a great college of science, founded by coliege^of 
an ancient ruler, and called Salomon's house — science. 
' the noblest foundation that ever was upon the earth, and 
the lantern of this kingdom.' 

The rest of the work describes the constitution of this 

great foundation for ' the finding out the true nature of all 

things.' The end of this college of science is to 

& & The work 

reach ' the knowledge of causes, and secret mo- of the 

college. 
tions of things, and the enlarging of the bounds 

of human empire to the effecting of all things possible.' That 
is the motto of the great temple. There is much that is fan- 
tastic in the sequel, but it illustrates Bacon's dearest aspira- 
tions, and his anticipations of what science might, if effort 
were fittingly organised, ultimately accomplish. There are 
caves sunk six hundred fathoms deep, in which ' refrigera- 
tions and conservations of bodies ' are effected, and new 
metals artificially contrived. There are turrets half a mile 
high — in one case erected on a mountain three miles high — 
for purposes of meteorological observation. There is a cham- 
ber of health, where the atmosphere is modulated artificially 
with a view to adapting it to cure various diseases. In the 
gardens, new flowers and fruits are brought into being by dint 
of grafting and inoculation. Vivisection is practised on 
beasts and birds, so that opportunities may be at hand to 



254. GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

test the effects of poison and new operations in surgery, and 
to widen the knowledge of physiology; while breeding experi- 
ments produce new and useful species of animals. Optics in 
all its branches is studied practically in the laboratories, called 
perspective-houses. Finally, there is an establishment where 
tricks that deceive the senses, like feats of juggling, or 
spiritualistic manifestations, or ghostly apparitions, are prac- 
tised to the highest perfection, and then explained to serious 
students who go out into the world, and by their instruction 
prevent the simple-minded from being deceived by quacks 
and impostors. 

The leading men of the island, the aristocracy, consist 
of a great hierarchy of fellows, or endowed students, of 

the House of Science. Each rank exercises dif- 
The Fellows 

of the ferent functions. Some, called the merchants of 

coIIggtg 

light/ travel to collect information. Others at 

home compile knowledge from books. Others codify the ex- 
periments of their colleagues. Some of the students devote 
themselves to applying the discoveries of theoretical science 
to mechanical inventions. Others extract, through the general 
work of the college, philosophic generalisations. Religion 
sheds its light on the foundation; and the father, or chief 
ruler, of the house is represented as abounding in pious 
fervour. All the students are, indeed, described as philan- 
thropists seeking inspiration from God. Respect for great 
discoverers of new truths or of new applications of science 
was one of the principles of Bacon's great scheme of a 
Temple of Science. For every invention of value a statue 
to the inventor was at once erected in the House, and a 
liberal and honourable reward was given him. 

The scheme of this great imaginary institution is Bacon's 
final message to mankind. His college of science was a 
design, he said, fit for a mighty prince to execute. He felt 



FRANCIS BACON 255 

that if such a design had been executed in his day, he him- 
self would have had the opportunty which he lacked of sepa- 
rating himself from sordid and sophisticated society, from 
evil temptations which he had not the moral cour- B , 
age to resist, of realising his youthful ambition, aspiration. 
History would then have known him exclusively as a bene- 
factor of the human race, a priest of science, who conse- 
crated every moment of his life to searching into the secrets 
of nature for the benefit of his fellow-men. 

Bacon's idea has not yet been realised. Whether a temple 
of science on the scale that Bacon imagined it will ever 
come into existence remains to be seen. But when p ro spects 
I read and hear— and I have often heard of them gf« 
since I have been in the United States — of the ldeal - 
high intellectual and scientific aspirations that are alive in 
this country, when I hear of the readiness with which men 
of material wealth are prepared to devote large parts of 
their fortunes to furthering high intellectual and scientific 
aspirations, the hope cannot be wanting that Bacon's great 
ideal Temple of Science may achieve existence in reality 
within the confines of the Republic of the United States. 

Bacon was well alive to the means whereby a nation's 
intellectual prestige could best be sustained. In this illumi- 
nating tractate of his, The New Atlantis, he argued in effect 
that it was incumbent on a nation to apply a substantial part 
of its material resources to the equipment of scientific work 
and exploration — a substantial part of its resources which 
should grow greater and greater with the progress of time 
and of population, with the increasing complexity of knowl- 
edge. Such application of material resources, in Bacon's 
view, was the surest guarantee of national glory and pros- 
perity. This is perhaps at the moment the most serious lesson 
that Bacon's writings teach us. 



VII 

SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 

. . . Princes sit like stars about his throne, 
And he the sun for them to reverence. 
None that beheld him, but like lesser lights 
Did vail their crowns to his supremacy. 

Pericles, n., hi., 39-42. 

[Bibliography. — The main facts are recorded in the present 
writer's Life of Shakespeare, which was published in 1898. The 
documentary information respecting Shakespeare's career is 
collected in Halliwell Phillipps' Outlines of the Life of Shake- 
speare, 2 vols., tenth Edition, 1898. The two volumes published 
by The New Shakspere Society : Shakspere's Centurie of 
Prayse ; being materials for a history of opinion on Shakspere 
and his works, A.D. 1591-1693 (edited by C. M. Ingleby, and 
Lucy Toulmin Smith, 1879), and Some 300 Fresh Allusions to 
Shakspere from 1594 to 1694 A.D. (edited by F. J. Furnivall, 
1886), bear useful testimony to the persistence of the accepted 
tradition.] 



The obscurity with which Shakespeare's biography has 

been long credited is greatly exaggerated. The mere bio- 
graphical information accessible is far more defi- 

The docu- 

mentary nite and more abundant than that concerning any 

material. 

other dramatist of the day. In the case of no 

contemporary dramatist are the precise biographical dates and 
details — dates of baptism and burial, circumstances of mar- 
riage, circumstances of children, the private pecuniary trans- 
actions of his career, the means of determining the years 
in which his various literary works were planned and pro- 
duced — equally numerous or based on equally firm docu- 
mentary foundation. 

Shakespeare's father, John Shakespeare, was a dealer in 
256 




William Shakespeare. 

From the monument in the chancel of the parish church of Stratford-upon-Avon, 



SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 257 

agricultural produce at Stratford-on-Avon, a prosperous 

country town in the heart of England. John Shakespeare 

was himself son of a small farmer residing in the p aren tage 

neighbouring Warwickshire village of Smitter- an 1Tt ' 

field. The family was of yeoman stock. Shakespeare's 

mother, Mary Arden, was also daughter of a local farmer, 

who enjoyed somewhat greater wealth and social standing 

than the poet's father and kindred. William Shakespeare, 

the eldest child that survived infancy, was baptized in the 

parish church of Stratford-on-Avon on 26th April 1564, and 

the entry may still be read there in the parish registers. 

The more closely one studies Shakespeare's career, the 

plainer it becomes that his experiences and fortunes were 

very similar to those of many who came in adult 

Education, 
years to follow in his day his own profession. 

Sprung from yeoman stock, of a family moderately supplied 

with the world's needs, he had the normal opportunities of 

education which the Grammar School of the town of his birth 

could supply. Elizabethan Grammar Schools gave boys of 

humble birth a sound literary education. Latin was the chief 

subject of their study. The boys talked Latin with their 

master in simple dialogue; they translated it into English; 

they wrote compositions in it. A boy with a native bent for 

literature was certain to have his interest stimulated if he 

went to an Elizabethan Grammar School, and mastered the 

Latin curriculum. Few of Shakespeare's schoolfellows at 

Stratford, whatever their adult fortunes, lost in later life 

familiarity with the Latin which they had acquired at school. 

Friends and neighbours of Shakespeare at Stratford, who 

were educated with him at the Grammar School and passed 

their days as grocers or butchers in the town, were in the 

habit of corresponding with one another in copious and fluent 

Latin. 

R 



258, GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

Of Shakespeare's great literary contemporaries few began 

life in a higher social position or with better opportunities 

of education than he. Marlowe, who was the first 
The train- 
ing of writer of literary blank verse in England, and was 
literary 

contem- Shakespeare's tutor in artistic tragedy, was son of 

poraries. , 

a shoemaker, and was educated at the King s Gram- 
mar School of Canterbury. Spenser, the poet of the Faerie 
Queene, was son of an impecunious London tailor, and began 
writing poetry after passing through the Merchant Taylors' 
School. These schools were of the same type as the school of 
Stratf ord-on-Avon ; they provided an identical course of 
study. 

While Shakespeare was a schoolboy his father was a 
prosperous tradesman, holding the highest civic office in the 
His self- little town of Stratford. Unfortunately, when the 
training. eldest son William was little more than fourteen, 
the father fell into pecuniary embarrassment, and the boy 
was withdrawn from school before his course of study was 
complete. He was deprived of the opportunity of continu- 
ing his education at a university; his further studies he had 
to pursue unaided. Nothing peculiar to his experience is to 
be detected in the fact that his pursuit of knowledge went 
steadily forward after he left school. Many men of the 
day, whose education suffered similar abbreviation, became 
not merely men of wide reading, but men of immense learn- 
ing. Ben Jonson, whose erudition in the Latin and Greek 
classics has for range and insight very rarely been equalled 
in England, was, according to his own account, taken from 
school and put as a lad to the trade of bricklaying — the least 
literary of all trades. Sir Walter Ralegh had a very irregu- 
lar training in youth; he left Oxford soon after joining the 
university, without submitting to regular discipline there, 
yet, after a career of great activity in all departments of 



SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 259 

t 

human effort, he wrote his History of the World, a formida- 
ble compendium of learned and recondite research. Other 
great writers of the day owed little or nothing to academic 
teaching; their wide reading was the fruit of a natural taste; 
it was under no teacher's control; it was carried forward at 
the same time as they engaged in other employment. 
Shakespeare, owing to his interrupted education, was never 
a trained scholar; he had defects of knowledge which were 
impossible in a trained scholar, but he was clearly an omniv- 
orous reader from youth till the end of his days; he was a 
wider reader than most of those who owed deeper debts to 
schools or colleges. 

ii 

Shakespeare's father intended that he should assist him 
in his own multifarious business of glover, butcher, and the 
rest. But this occupation was uncongenial to the 

r ° Experi- 

young man, and he successfully escaped from it. ences of 
He developed early. At eighteen he married 
hastily, to the not unnatural annoyance of his parents. Very 
soon afterwards his genius taught him that he required a 
larger scope for its development than the narrow associations 
of a domestic hearth in a little country town could afford 
him. At twenty-two, like hundreds of other young English- 
men of ability, of ambition, and of high spirits, he set his 
face towards the capital city of the country, towards London, 
where he found his goal. 

The drama was in its infancy. The first theatre- built in 
England was not a dozen years old when Shakespeare 
arrived in the metropolis. The theatre was a The infant 
new institution in the social life of Shakespeare's d* 8 ™ 11 - 
youth. English drama was an innovation; it was one of the 
latest fruits of the Renaissance in England, of the commin- 



260 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

gling of the new study of classical drama with the new 

expansion of intellectual power and outlook. A love of 

mimicry is inherent in men, and the Middle Ages gratified 

it by their Miracle Plays, which developed into Moralities, 

and Interludes. In the middle of the sixteenth century Latin 

and Greek plays were crudely imitated in English. But of 

poetic, literary, romantic, intellectual drama, England knew 

practically nothing until Shakespeare was of age. The land 

was just discovered, and its exploration was awaiting a leader 

of men, a master mind. 

There is nothing difficult or inexplicable in Shakespeare's 

association with the theatre. It should always be borne in 

mind that his conscious aims and ambitions were 
His associa- 
tion with those of other men of literary aspirations in this 
the theatre. 

stirring epoch. The difference between the re- 
sults of his endeavours and those of his fellows was due to 
the magic and involuntary working of genius, which, since 
the birth of time, has exercised as large a charter as the 
wind, to blow on whom it pleases. Speculation or debate 
as to why genius bestowed its fullest inspiration on Shake- 
speare, this youth of Stratford-on-Avon, is as futile a specu- 
lation as debate about why he was born into the world with 
a head on his shoulders at all instead of, say, a block of 
stone. It is enough for prudent men and women to ac- 
knowledge the obvious fact that genius in an era of infinite 
intellectual energy endowed Shakespeare, the Stratford-on- 
Avon boy, with its richest gifts. A very small acquaintance 
with the literary history of the world, and the manner in 
which genius habitually plays its part there, will show the 
folly of cherishing astonishment that Shakespeare, of Strat- 
ford-on-Avon, rather than one more nobly born, or more 
academically trained, should, in an age so rich in intellectual 
and poetic impulse, have been chosen for the glorious dignity. 



SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 261 

In London Shakespeare's work was mainly done. There 
his reputation and fortune were achieved. But his London 

career opened under many disadvantages. A 

His associa- 

young man of twenty-two, burdened with a wife tionwith 

London. 

and three children, he had left his home in his 

little native town about 1586 to seek his fortune in the great 
city. Without friends, and without money, he had, like many 
another stage-struck youth, set his heart on a two-fold quest. 
He would become an actor in the metropolis, and would write 
the plays in which he should act. Fortune did not at first 
conspicuously favour him; he sought and won the menial 
office of call-boy in a London playhouse, and was only after 
some delay promoted to humble duties on the stage itself. 
But no sooner had his foot touched the lowest rung of the 
theatrical ladder, than he felt intuitively that the topmost 
rung was within his reach. He tried his hand on the revision 
of an old play in the theatrical repertory, a play which was 
about to be revived. The manager was not slow to recognise 
the gift for dramatic writing. 



in 

Shakespeare's period of probation was not short. He did 

not leap at a bound to fame and fortune. Neither came in 

sight until he had worked for seven or eight years 

B s J The period 

in obscurity and hardship. During these years ofproba- 

he accumulated knowledge in very varied fields 
of study and experience. Rapid power of intuition character- 
ised many another great writer of the day, but none possessed 
it in the same degree as himself. Shakespeare's biographers 
have sometimes failed to make adequate allowance for his 
power of acquiring information with almost the rapidity of a 



262 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

lightning flash, and they have ignored altogether the circum- 
stance that to some extent his literary contemporaries shared 
this power with him. The habit of viewing Shakespeare in 
isolation has given birth to many misconceptions. 

The assumption of Shakespeare's personal association in 
early days with the profession of the law is a good illus- 
Useoflaw tration of the sort of misunderstanding which has 
terms. corrupted accounts of Shakespeare's career. None 

can question the fact of Shakespeare's frequent use of law 
terms. But, the theory that during his early life in London 
he practised law in one or other professional capacity be- 
comes perfectly superfluous as soon as his knowledge of law 
is compared with that of other Elizabethan poets, and its 
intuitive, rather than professional, character appreciated. 

It is true that Shakespeare employs a long series of law 
terms with accuracy and is in the habit of using legal meta- 
phors. But the careful inquirer will also perceive that 
instances of ' bad law ' or unsound interpretation of legal 
principles are almost as numerous in Shakespeare's work as 
instances of ' good law ' or right interpretation of legal prin- 
ciples. On that aspect of the problem writers are as a rule 
tantalisingly silent. 

If we are content to keep Shakespeare apart from his 
contemporaries, or to judge him exclusively by the practice 
of imaginative writers of recent times, the circumstance that 
he often borrows metaphors or terminology from the law 
may well appear to justify the notion that personal experi- 
ence of the profession is the best explanation of his practice. 

But the problem assumes a very different aspect 
The habit ^ , 

ofcontem- when it is perceived that Shakespeare's fellow- 
poraries. , .. 

writers, Ben Jonson and Spenser, Massinger and 

Webster, employed law terms with no less frequency and 
facility than he. It can be stated with the utmost confidence 



SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 263 

that none of these men engaged in the legal profession. 

Spenser's Faerie Queene seems the least likely place wherein 

to study Elizabethan law. But Spenser in his romantic epic 

is even more generous than Shakespeare in his 

Spenser's 
plays in technical references to legal procedure, use of law 

Take such passages as the following. The first 
forms a technical commentary on the somewhat obscure law 
of ' alluvion,' with which Shakespeare shows no sign of ac- 
quaintance : — 

'For that a waif, the which by fortune came 
Upon your seas, he claim'd as property: 
And yet nor his, nor his in equity, 
But yours the waif by high prerogative. 
Therefore I humbly crave your Majesty 
It to replevie, and my son reprieve, 
So shall you by one gift save all us three alive.' ' 

In the second passage a definite form of legal practice is 
fully and accurately described: — 

'Fair Mirabella was her name, whereby 
Of all those crimes she there indicted was: 
All which when Cupid heard, he by and by, 
In great displeasure willed a Capias 
Should issue forth t'attach that scornful lass. 
The warrant straight was made, and there withal 
A Bailiff-errant forth in post did pass, 
Whom they by name there Portamore did call; 
He which doth summon lovers to love's judgment hall. 
The damsel was attached, and shortly brought 
Unto the bar whereas she was arraigned; 
But she thereto nould plead, nor answer aught 
Even for stubborn pride which her restrained. 
So judgment passed, as is by law ordained 
In cases like.' 2 

1 Faerie Queene, Bk. iv., canto xii., stanza xxxi. 

2 Faerie Queene, Bk. vi., canto vii., stanzas xxxv. and xxxvi. 



264 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

It will be noticed by readers of these quotations that 
Spenser makes free with strangely recondite technical terms. 
Spenser's ^he verD ' replevie,' in the first quotation, means 
recondite « j. Q en ^ er on disputed property, after giving se- 
phrases. curity to test at law the question of rightful 

ownership ' ; the technicality is to modern ears altogether 
out of harmony with the language of the Muses, and is 
rarely to be matched in Shakespeare. 

Such examples could be multiplied almost indefinitely from 
Shake- Spenser, Ben Jonson, and scores of their contem- 

conformitv poraries. The questions ' Was Spenser a lawyer? ' 
v^ilin* 6 " or ' ^ as -^ en J° nson a lawyer ? ' have as far as 
habit. mv biographical studies go, not yet been raised. 

Were they raised, they could be summarily answered in the 
negative. 

No peculiar biographical significance can attach therefore, 
apart from positive evidence no title of which exists, to 
Shakespeare's legal phraseology. Social intercourse between 
men of letters and lawyers was exceptionally active in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In view of the sensi- 
tiveness to environment, in view of the mental receptivity 
of all great writers of the day, it becomes unnecessary to 
assign to any more special causes the prevailing predilection 
for legal language in contemporary literature. The fre- 
quency with which law terms are employed by Shakespeare's 
contemporaries, who may justly be denied all practical ex- 
perience of the profession of law, confutes the conclusion 
that Shakespeare, because he used law terms, was at the 
outset of his career in London a practising lawyer or lawyer's 
clerk. The only just conclusion to be drawn by Shakespeare's 
biographer from his employment of law terms is that the 
great dramatist in this feature, as in numerous other features, 
of his work was merely proving the readiness with which he 



SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 265 

identified himself with the popular literary habits of his day. 
All Shakespeare's mental energy, it may safely be premised, 
was absorbed throughout his London career by his dramatic 
ambition. He had no time to make acquaintance at first hand 
with the technical procedure of another profession. 



IV 

It was not probably till 1591, when he was twenty-seven, 

that Shakespeare's earliest original play, Love's Labour's 

Lost, was performed. It showed the hand of a be- 

it. • • i ... -r» Shake- 

ginner; it abounded in trivial witticisms. But speare's 

above all there shone out clearly and unmistakably 

the dramatic and poetic fire, the humorous outlook on life, the 

insight into human feeling, which were to inspire Titanic 

achievements in the future. Soon after, he scaled the tragic 

heights of Romeo and Juliet, and he was rightly hailed as 

the prophet of a new world of art. Thenceforth he marched 

onward in triumph. 

Fashionable London society befriended the new birth of 

the theatre. Cultivated noblemen offered their patronage 

to promising actors or writers for the stage, and 

r & & ' The Earl of 

Shakespeare soon gained the ear of the young Southamp- 
ton. 
Earl of Southampton, one of the most accom- 
plished and handsome of the Queen's noble courtiers. The 
earl was said to spend nearly all his leisure at the playhouse 
every day. 

It is not always borne in mind that Shakespeare gained 
soon after the earliest of his theatrical successes notable 
recognition from the highest in the land, from Queen Eliza- 
beth, and her Court. It was probably at the suggestion of his 
enthusiastic patron, Lord Southampton, that, in the week pre- 
ceding the Christmas of 1594, when Shakespeare was thirty, 



266 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

and he had just turned the corner of his career, the Lord 
Chamberlain sent a stirring message to the theatre in Shore- 
ditch, where Shakespeare was at work as playwright and actor. 
The young dramatist was ordered to present himself at Court 
for two days following Christmas, and to give his sovereign on 
each of the two evenings a taste of his quality. 

The invitation was of singular interest. It cannot have 
been Shakespeare's promise as an actor that led to the 

royal summons. His histrionic fame did not pro- 
Shake- J r 
speareat gress at the same rate as his literary repute. He 

Court - .ii ip 

was never to win the laurels of a great actor. 

His most conspicuous triumph on the stage was achieved in 
middle life as the Ghost in his own Hamlet, and he ordinarily 
confined his efforts to old men of secondary rank. Ample 
compensation for his personal deficiencies as an actor was 
provided by the merits of his companions on his first visit to 
Court; he was to come supported by actors of the highest 
eminence in their generation. Directions were given that 
the greatest of the tragic actors of the day, Richard Burbage, 
and the greatest of the comic actors, William Kemp, were 
to bear the young actor-dramatist company. With neither of 
these was Shakespeare's histrionic position then, or at any 
time, comparable. For years they were the leaders of the 
acting profession. Shakespeare's relations with Burbage and 
Kemp were close, both privately and professionally. Almost 
all Shakespeare's great tragic characters were created on the 
stage by Burbage, who had lately roused London to enthu- 
siasm by his stirring representation of Shakespeare's Richard 
III. for the first time. As long as Kemp lived he conferred 
a like service on many of Shakespeare's comic characters, and 
he had recently proved his worth as a Shakespearian comedian 
by his original rendering of the part of Peter, the Nurse's 
graceless serving-man, in Romeo and Juliet. Thus power- 



SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 267 

fully supported, Shakespeare appeared for the first time in 
the royal presence-chamber in Greenwich Palace on the even- 
ing of St. Stephen's Day (the Boxing-day of subsequent 
generations) in 1594. 

Extant documentary evidence of this visit of Shakespeare 
to Court may be seen in the manuscript account of the 
' Treasurer of the [royal] chamber ' now in the A per f oriI1 . 
Public Record Office in London. The document courUn 
attests that Shakespeare and his two associates 1594 - 
performed one ' Comedy or Interlude ' on that night of Box- 
ing-day in 1594, and gave another ' Comedy or Interlude' on 
the next night but one (on Innocents'-day) ; that the Lord 
Chamberlain paid the three men for their services the sum 
of .£13, 6s. 8d., and that the Queen added to the honorarium, 
as a personal proof of her satisfaction, the further sum of 
£6, 13s. 4d. The remuneration was thus .£20 in all. These 
were substantial sums in those days, when the purchasing 
power of money was eight times as much as it is to-day, and 
the three actors' reward would now be equivalent to £160. 
Unhappily the record does not go beyond the payment of 
the money. What words of commendation or encouragement 
Shakespeare received from his royal auditor are not handed 
down to us, nor do we know for certain what plays were 
performed on the great occasion. It is reasonable to infer 
that all the scenes came from Shakespeare's repertory. Prob- 
ably they were drawn from Love's Labour's Lost, which was 
always popular in later years at Elizabeth's Court, and from 
The Comedy of Errors, in which the farcical confusions and 
horse-play were calculated to gratify the Queen's robust 
taste. But nothing can be stated with absolute certainty 
except that on December 29, 1594, Shakespeare travelled up 
the River Thames from Greenwich to London with a heavier 
purse and a lighter heart than on his setting out. That the 



268 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

visit had in all ways been crowned with success there is ample 
indirect evidence. He and his work had fascinated his 
sovereign, and many a time was she to seek delight again in 
the renderings of his plays, by himself and his fellow actors, 
at her palaces on the banks of the Thames during her re- 
maining nine years of life. 

When, a few months later, Shakespeare was penning his 
new play of A Midsummer Night's Dream, he could not for- 
bear to make a passing obeisance of gallantry (in 
Shake- 
speare's that vein for which the old spinster queen was 

always thirsting) to ' a fair vestal throned by the 
West,' who passed her life ' in maiden meditation, fancy 
free/ 

The interest that Shakespeare's work excited at the Court 
was continuous throughout his life, and helped to render his 
Continu- position unassailable. When James i. ascended 
Court° f *" ne throne, no author was more frequently hon- 

favour. oured by ' command ' performances of his plays 

in the presence of the sovereign. Then, as now, the play- 
goer's appreciation was quickened by his knowledge that the 
play he was witnessing had been produced before the Court 
at Greenwich or Whitehall a few days earlier. Shakespeare's 
publishers were not above advertising facts like these, as the 
Publisher's title-pages of quarto editions published in his 
mentsof 6 " lifetime sufficiently prove. ' The pleasant con- 
the fact. ceited comedy called Love's Labour's Lost ' was 

advertised with the appended words, ' as it was presented 
before her highness this last Christmas.' ' A most pleasant 
and excellent conceited comedy of Sir John Falstaff and the 
Merry Wives of Windsor ' was stated to have been ' divers 
times acted both before her Majesty and elsewhere.' The 
ineffably great play of King Lear was advertised with some- 
thing like tradesmanlike effrontery ' as it was played before 



SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 269 

the King's Majesty at Whitehall on St. Stephen's Night in 
the Christmas Holidays.' 



But the Court never stood alone in its admiration of 

Shakespeare's work. Court and crowd never differed in their 

estimation of his dramatic power. There is no 

The favour 

doubt that Shakespeare conspicuously caught the of the 

crowd, 
ear of the Elizabethan playgoers of all classes 

at a very early date in his career, and held it firmly for life. 

' These plays/ wrote two of his professional associates of 

the reception of the whole series in the playhouse during his 

lifetime, ' these plays have had their trial already, and stood 

out all appeals.' Equally significant is Ben Jonson's 

apostrophe of Shakespeare as 

'The applause, delight, and wonder of our stage.' 

A charge has sometimes been brought against the Eliza- 
bethan playgoer of failing to recognise Shakespeare's sov- 
ereign genius. That accusation should be reck- 
oned among popular fallacies. It was not merely fallacy of 

Shake- 
the recognition of the fashionable, the critical, speare's 

neglect, 
the highly-educated, that Shakespeare personally 

received. It was by the voice of the half-educated populace, 
whose heart and intellect were for once in the right, that he 
was acclaimed the greatest interpreter of human nature that 
literature had known, and, as subsequent experience has 
proved, was likely to know. There is evidence that through- 
out his lifetime and for a generation afterwards his plays 
drew crowds to pit, boxes, and gallery alike. It is true that he 
was one of a number of popular dramatists, many of whom 
had rare gifts, and all of whom glowed with a spark of the 
genuine literary fire. But Shakespeare was the sun in the 



270 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

firmament; when his light shone the fires of all contempo- 
raries paled in the contemporary playgoer's eye. Very forcible 
and very humorous was the portrayal of human frailty and 
eccentricity in the plays of Shakespeare's contemporary, Ben 
Jonson. Ben Jonson, too, was a fine classical scholar, which 
Shakespeare, despite his general knowledge of Latin, was 
not. But when Shakespeare and Ben Jonson both tried their 
hands at dramatising episodes in Roman history, the Eliza- 
bethan public of all degrees of intelligence welcomed Shake- 
speare's efforts with an enthusiasm which they rigidly with- 
held from Ben Jonson's. This is how an ordinary playgoer 
contrasted in crude verse the reception of Jonson's Roman 
play of Catiline's Conspiracy with that of Shakespeare's 
Roman play of Julius Caesar: — 

'So have I seen when Caesar would appear, 
And on the stage at half -sword parley were 
Brutus and Cassius — oh ! how the audience 
Were ravished, with what wonder they went thence; 
When some new day they would not brook a line 
Of tedious though well-laboured Catiline.' 

Jonson's ' tedious though well-laboured Catiline ' was un- 
endurable when compared with the ravishing interest of 
Julius Caesar. Shakespeare was the popular favourite. It is 

rare that the artist who is a hero with the multi- 
Shake- 
speare's tude is also a hero with the cultivated few. But 
univer- , 
sality of Shakespeare s universality of appeal was such as 

to include among his worshippers from first to 

last the trained and the untrained playgoer of his time. 



VI 

Shakespeare's work was exceptionally progressive in qual- 
ity; few authors advanced in their art more steadily. His 
hand grew firmer, his thought grew richer, as his years 



SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 271 

increased, and apart from external evidence as to the date of 
production or publication of his plays, the discerning critic 
can determine from the versification, and from the p ro gres- 
general handling of his theme, to what period in oTtoT^ * 
his life each composition belongs. All the dif- work - 
ferences discernible in Shakespeare's plays clearly prove 
the gradual but steady development of dramatic power and 
temper; they separate with definiteness early from late work. 
The comedies of Shakespeare's younger days often trench 
upon the domains of farce; those of his middle and later 
life approach the domain of tragedy. Tragedy in his hands 
markedly grew, as his years advanced, in subtlety and in- 
tensity. His tragic themes became more and more complex, 
and betrayed deeper and deeper knowledge of the workings 
of human passion. Finally the storm and stress of tragedy 
yielded to the placid pathos of romance. All the evidence 
shows that, when his years of probation ended, he mastered 
in steady though rapid succession every degree and phase of 
excellence in the sphere of drama, from the phantasy of 
A Midsummer Night's Dream to the unmatchable humour of 
Falstaff, from the passionate tragedies of King Lear and 
Othello to the romantic pathos of Cymbeline and The 
Tempest. 

VII 

Another side of Shakespeare's character and biography 
deserves attention. He was not merely a great poet and 
dramatist, endowed with imagination without rival jjj s prac _ 
or parallel in human history; he was a practical i^gof 8,11 
man of the world. His work proves that his affairs - 
unique intuition was not merely that of a man of imaginative 
genius, but that of a man who was deeply interested and 
well versed in the affairs of everyday life. With that practi- 



272 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

cal sense, which commonly characterises the man of the 
world, Shakespeare economised his powers and spared his 
inventive energy, despite its abundance, wherever his purpose 
could be served by levying loans on the writings of others. 
He rarely put himself to the pains of inventing a plot for 
his dramas; he borrowed his fables from popular current 
literature, such as Holinshed's Chronicles, North's translation 
of Plutarch's Lives, widely read romances, or even plays that 
had already met with more or less success on the stage. It 
was not merely ' airy nothings ' and ' forms of things un- 
known ' — the creatures of his imagination — that found in his 
dramas ' a local habitation and a name ' ; he depended very 
often on the solid fruit of serious reading. By such a 
method he harboured his strength, at the same time as he 
deliberately increased his hold on popular taste. He dimin- 
ished the risk of failure to satisfy the standard of public 
culture. Naturally he altered his borrowed plots as his sense 
of artistic fitness dictated, or refashioned them altogether. 
From rough ore he usually extracted pure gold, but there was 
business aptitude in his mode of gathering the ore. In like 
manner the amount of work he accomplished in the twenty 
years of his active professional career amply proves his steady 
power of application, and the regularity with which he 
pursued his literary vocation. 

Appreciation of his practical mode of literary work should 
leave no room for surprise at the discovery that he engaged 
with success in the practical affairs of life which lay outside 

the sphere of his art. As soon as the popularity 
The return 

toStrat- of his work for the theatre was assured, and he 
had acquired by way of reward a valuable and 
profitable share in the profits of the company to which he 
was attached, Shakespeare returned to his native place, filled 
with the ambition of establishing his family there on a sure 



SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 273 

footing. His father's debts had grown in his absence, and 
his wife had had to borrow money for her support. But his 
return in prosperous circumstances finally relieved his kindred 
of pecuniary anxiety. He purchased the largest house in the 
town, New Place, and, like other actors of the day, faced 
a long series of obstacles in an effort to obtain for his family 
a coat of arms. He invested money in real estate at Strat- 
ford; he acquired arable land as well as pasture. His Strat- 
ford neighbours, who had known him as a poor lad, now 
appealed to him for loans or gifts of money in their need, 
and for the exercise of his influence in their behalf in 
London. He proved himself a rigorous man in all business 
matters with his neighbours, asserting his legal rights in all 
financial relations in the local courts, where he often appeared 
as plaintiff, and usually came off victorious. His average 
income in later life was reputed by his neighbours to exceed 
a thousand pounds a year. 

No mystery attaches to Shakespeare's financial competency. 
It is easily traceable to his professional earnings — as author, 

actor, and theatrical shareholder — and to his 

His fi nan- 
shrewd handling of his revenues. Shakespeare's cialcom- 

petence. 
ultimate financial position differs little from that 

which his fellow theatrical managers and actors made for 
themselves. The profession of the theatre flourished con- 
spicuously in his day, and brought fortunes to most of 
those who shared in theatrical management. Shakespeare's 
professional friends and colleagues — leading actors and 
managers of the playhouses — were in late life men of 
substance. Like him, they had residences in both town 
and country; they owned houses and lands; and laid ques- 
tionable claim to coat armour. 1 Edward Alleyn, an actor 

1 A manuscript tract, entitled ' A brief discourse of the causes of the 
discord amongst the officers of Arms and of the great abuses and absurdi- 

S 



274 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

and playhouse manager, began life in much the same way as 
Shakespeare, and was only two years his junior; at the 
munificent expense of ten thousand pounds he endowed out 
of his theatrical earnings, after making due provision for his 
family, the great College of God's Gift, with almshouses 
attached, at Dulwich, within four miles of the theatrical 
quarter of Southwark. The explanation of such wealth is not 
far to seek. The fascination of novelty still hung about the 
theatre even when Shakespeare retired from work. The 
Elizabethans, and the men and women in Jacobean England, 
were — excepting those of an ultra-pious disposition — en- 
thusiastic playgoers and seekers after amusement, and the 
stirring recreation which the playhouse provided was gener- 
ously and even extravagantly remunerated. There is nothing 

ties committed to the prejudice and hindrance of the office,' was recently 
lent me by its owner. It is in the handwriting of one of the smaller officials 
of the College of Arms, William Smith, rouge dragon pursuivant, and 
throws curious light on the passion for heraldry which infested Shakespeare's 
actor-colleagues. Rouge-dragon specially mentions in illustration of his 
theme two of Shakespeare's professional colleagues, namely Augustine 
Phillipps and Thomas Pope, both of whose names are enshrined in that leaf 
of the great First Folio which enumerates the principal actors of Shake- 
speare's plays during his lifetime. Augustine Phillipps was an especially 
close friend, and left Shakespeare by his will a thirty shilling piece in gold. 
Both these men, Pope and Phillipps, according to the manuscript, spared 
no effort to obtain and display that hall-mark of gentility — a coat of arms. 
Both made unjustifiable claim to be connected with persons of high rank. 
When applying for coat-armour to the College of Arms, ' Pope the player,' 
we are told, would have no other arms than those of Sir Thomas Pope, a 
courtier and privy councillor, who died early in Elizabeth's reign, and 
perpetuated his name by founding a college at Oxford, Trinity College. 
The only genuine tie between him and the player was identity of a not un- 
common surname. Phillipps the player claimed similar relations with a 
remoter hero, one Sir William Phillipps, a warrior who won renown at Agin- 
court, and who was allowed to bear his father-in-law's title of Lord Bardolph 
— a title very familiar to readers of Shakespeare in a different connection. 
The actor Phillipps, to the disgust of the heraldic critic, caused the arms 
of this spurious ancestor, Sir William Phillipps, Lord Bardolph, to be en- 
graved with due quarterings on a gold ring. The critic tells how he went 
with a colleague to a small graver's shop in Foster Lane, in the City, and 
saw the ring that had been engraved for the player. 



SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 275 

exceptional either in the amount of the profits which Shake- 
speare derived from connection with theatrical enterprise or 
in the manner in which he spent them. 

VIII 

Finally, about 1611, Shakespeare made Stratford his per- 
manent home. He retired from the active exercise of his 
profession, in order to enjoy those honours and His last 
privileges which, according to the prevailing social days - 
code, wealth only brought in full measure to a playwright 
after he ceased actively to follow his career. Shakespeare 
practically admitted that his final aim was what at the outset 
of his days he had defined as ' the aim of all ' : 

'The aim of all is but to nurse this life 
Unto honour, wealth, and ease in waning age.' 

Shakespeare probably paid occasional visits to London in 
the five years that intervened between his retirement from 
active life and his death. In 1613 he purchased a house in 
Blackfriars, apparently merely by way of investment. He 
then seems, too, to have disposed of his theatrical shares. 
For the work of his life was over, and he devoted the evening 
of his days to rest in his native place, and to the undisturbed 
tenure of the respect of his neighbours. He was on good 
terms with the leading citizens of Stratford, and occasionally 
invited literary friends from London to be his guests. In 
local politics he took a very modest part. There he figured 
on the side of the wealthy, and showed little regard for 
popular rights, especially when they menaced property. At 
length, early in I6l6, when his fifty-second year was closing, 
his health began to fail, and he died in his great house at 
Stratford on Tuesday, April 23, l6l6, probably on his fifty- 
second birthday. 



276 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

Shakespeare carefully attended in the last months of his 
life to the disposition of his property, which consisted, apart 
from houses and lands, of <£350 in money (nearly 
<£3000 in modern currency), and much valuable 
plate and other personalty. His wife and two daughters sur- 
vived him. He left the bulk of his possessions to his elder 
daughter, Susanna, who was married to a medical practitioner 
at Stratford, John Hall. He bequeathed nothing to his wife 
except his second best bedstead, probably because she had 
smaller business capacity to deal with property than her 
daughter Susanna, to whose affectionate care she was en- 
trusted. Shakespeare's younger daughter, Judith, was ade- 
quately provided for; and to his granddaughter, his elder 
daughter's daughter, Elizabeth, who was ultimately his last 
direct survivor, he left most of his plate. The legatees in- 
cluded three of the dramatist's fellow-actors, to each of whom 
he left a sum of 26s. 8d., wherewith to buy memorial rings. 
Such a bequest well confirms the reputation that he enjoyed 
among his professional colleagues for geniality and gentle 
sympathy. Other bequests show that he reckoned to the last 
his chief neighbours at Stratford among his intimate friends. 
Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the church of 

his native town, Stratford-on-Avon. On the slab 
His burial. 

of stone covering the grave on the chancel floor 

were inscribed the lines: 

'Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare, 
To digg the dust eneloased heare: 
Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones, 
And curst be he yt moves my bones.' 

A justification of this doggerel inscription is (if needed) 
not far to seek. According to one William Hall, who 
described a visit to Stratford in 1694, these crude verses were 



SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 277 

penned by Shakespeare to suit the capacity of ' clerks and 
sextons, for the most part a very ignorant set of people.' 
Had this curse not threatened them, Hall proceeds, the sex- 
ton would not have hesitated in course of time to remove 
Shakespeare's dust to ' the bone-house,' to which desecration 
Shakespeare had a rooted antipathy. As it was, the grave 
was made seventeen feet deep, and was never opened, even 
to receive his wife, although she expressed a desire to be 
buried in the same grave with her husband. 

But more important is it to remember that a monument 
was soon placed on the chancel wall near his grave. The 
inscription upon Shakespeare's tomb in Stratford- Hismonu- 
on-Avon Church attests that Shakespeare, the na- ment - 
tive of Stratford-on-Avon, who went to London a poor youth 
and returned in middle life a man of substance, was known 
in his native place as the greatest man of letters of his epoch. 
In these days when we hear doubts expressed of the fact that 
the writer of the great plays identified with Shakespeare's 
name was actually associated with Stratford-on-Avon at all, 
this epitaph should, in the interests of truth and good sense, 
be learned by heart in youth by every English-speaking 
person. The epitaph opens with a Latin distich, in which 
Shakespeare is likened, not perhaps very appositely, to three 
great heroes of classical antiquity — in judgment to Nestor, 
in genius to Socrates (certainly an inapt comparison), and 
in art or literary power to Virgil, the greatest of Latin poets. 
Earth is said to cover him, the people to mourn him, and 
Olympus to hold him. Then follows this English verse, not 
brilliant verse, but verse that leaves no reader in doubt as to 
its significance: 

'Stay, passenger, why goest thou by so fast? 
Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath plast 



278 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

Within this monument; — Shakespeare, with whom 
Quicke nature died: ' whose name doth deck this tombe 
Far more than cost: sith all that he hath writ 
Leaves living art but page to serve his wit.' 

There follows the statement in Latin that he died on 23rd 
April 1616. 

'All that he hath writ 
Leaves living art but page to serve his wit.' 

These words mean only one thing: at Stratford-on-Avon, 
his native place, Shakespeare was held to enjoy a universal 
reputation. Literature by all other living pens was at the 
date of his death only fit, in the eyes of his fellow-townsmen, 
to serve ' all that he had writ ' as pageboy or menial. There 
he was the acknowledged master, and all other writers were 
his servants. The epitaph can be explained in no other sense. 
Until the tongue that Shakespeare spoke is dead, so long 
as the English language exists and is understood, it is futile 
to express doubt of the traditionally accepted facts of Shake- 
speare's career. 

IX 

The church at Stratford-on-Avon, which holds Shake- 
speare's bones, must always excite the liveliest sense of 

veneration among the English-speaking peoples. 
His elegists. 

It is there that is enshrined the final testimony 

to his ascent by force of genius from obscurity to glory. 

1 It is curious to note that Cardinal Pietro Bembo, one of the most culti- 
vated writers of the Italian Renaissance, was author of the epitaph on the 
painter Raphael, which seems to adumbrate (doubtless accidentally) the 
words in Shakespeare's epitaph, ' with whom Quicke Nature died.' Bembo 's 
lines run: 

' Hie ille est Raphael, metuit quo sospite vinci 
Rerum magna parens, et moriente, mori.' 

(' Here lies the famous Raphael, in whose lifetime 
great mother Nature feared to be outdone, and 
at whose death feared to die.') 



SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 279 

But great as is the importance of the inscription on his 
tomb to those who would understand the drift of Shake- 
speare's personal history, it was not the only testimony to 
the plain current of his life that found imperishable record 
in the epoch of his death. Biographers did not lie in wait 
for men of eminence on their deathbeds in Shakespeare's 
age, but the place of the modern memoir-writer was filled 
in those days by friendly poets, who were usually alert to pay 
fit homage in elegiac verse to a dead hero's achievements. In 
that regard Shakespeare's poetic friends showed at his death 
exceptional energy. During his lifetime men of letters had 
bestowed on his ' reigning wit,' on his kingly supremacy of 
genius, most generous stores of eulogy. When Shakespeare 
lay dead, in the spring of 1616, when, as one of his admirers 
technically phrased it, he had withdrawn from the stage of 
the world to the ' tiring-house ' or dressing-room of the grave, 
the flood of panegyrical lamentation poured forth in a new 
flood. One of the earliest of the elegies was a sonnet by 
William Basse, who not only gave picturesque expression to 
the conviction that Shakespeare would enjoy for all time a 
unique reverence on the part of his countrymen, but brought 
into strong relief the fact that national obsequies were held 
by his contemporaries to be his due, and that the withholding 
of them was contrary to a widely disseminated wish. In 
the opening lines of his poem Basse apostrophised Chaucer, 
Spenser, and the dramatist, Francis Beaumont, the only three 
poets who had hitherto received the recognition of burial in 
Westminster Abbey. Beaumont, the youngest of the trio, 
had been buried in the Abbey only five weeks before Shake- 
speare died. To this honoured trio Basse made appeal to 
' lie a thought more nigh ' one to another so as to make room 
for the newly dead Shakespeare within their ' sacred 
sepulchre.' Then, in the second half of his sonnet, the poet 



280 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

justified the fact that Shakespeare was buried elsewhere by 
the reflection that he in right of his pre-eminence merited a 
tomb apart from all his fellows. With a glance at Shake- 
speare's distant grave in the chancel of Stratford-on-Avon 
church, the writer exclaimed: 

'Under this carved marble of thine own 
Sleep, brave tragedian, Shakespeare, sleep alone.' 

This fine sentiment found many a splendid echo. It re- 
sounded in Ben Jonson's noble lines prefixed to the First 
Folio of 1623. ' To the memory of my beloved, the author, 
Mr. William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us.' 

'My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by 
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont he 
A little further to make thee a room. 
Thou art a monument without a tomb, 
And art alive still, while thy book doth live 
And we have wits to read and praise to give.' 

Milton qualified the conceit a few years later, in 1630, when 
he declared that Shakespeare ' sepulchred ' in ' the monu- 
ment ' of his writings, 

'in such pomp doth he, 
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.' 

Never was a glorious immortality foretold for any man 
with more impressive confidence than it was foretold for 

Shakespeare at his death by his circle of adorers. 
Prophecy 

ofimmor- When Time, one elegist said, should dissolve his 
tality. 

' Stratford monument,' the laurel about Shake- 
speare's brow would wear its greenest hue. Shakespeare's 
critical friend, Ben Jonson, was but one of a numerous band 
who imagined the ' sweet swan of Avon,' ' the star of poets,' 
shining for ever as a constellation in the firmament. Ben 
Jonson did not stand alone in anticipating that his fame 



SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 281 

would always shed a golden light on his native place of 
Stratford and the river Avon which ran beside it. Such 
was the invariable temper in which literary men gave vent 
to their grief on learning the death of the ' beloved author/ 
' the famous scenicke poet,' ' the admirable dramaticke poet/ 
' that famous writer and actor,' ' worthy master William 
Shakespeare ' of Stratf ord-on-Avon. 



When Shakespeare died, on the 23rd April l6l6, many men 
and women were alive who had come into personal association 
with him, and there were many more who had The oral 
heard of him from those who had spoken with tradltlon - 
him. Apart from his numerous kinsfolk, his widow, sister, 
brother, daughters, nephews, and neighbours at Stratford-on- 
Avon, there were in London a large society of fellow-authors 
and fellow-actors with whom he lived in close communion. 
In London, where Shakespeare's work was mainly done, and 
his fortune and reputation achieved, he lived with none in 
more intimate social relations than with the leading members 
of his own prosperous company of actors, which, under the 
patronage of the king, produced his greatest plays. It is to 
be borne in mind that to the disinterested admiration for his 
genius of two fellow-members of Shakespeare's company 
we chiefly owe the preservation and publication of the greater 
part of his literary work in the First Folio, that volume 
which first offered the world a full record of his achievement, 
and is the greatest of England's literary treasures. Those 
actor-editors of his dramas, Heming and Condell, acknowl- 
edged plainly and sincerely the personal fascination that ' so 
worthy a friend and fellow as was our Shakespeare ' had 
exerted on them. All his fellow-workers cherished an affec- 



282 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

tionate pride in the intimacy. It was they who were the 
parents of the greater part of the surviving oral tradition 
concerning Shakespeare — a tradition which combines with 
the extant documentary evidence to make Shakespeare's 
biography as unassailable as any narrative known to history. 

Some links in the chain of Shakespeare's career are still 
missing, and we must wait for the future to disclose them. 
Thecer- -But though the clues at present are in some places 

our 1 y ° faint, the trail never altogether eludes the patient 

knowledge, investigator. The ascertained facts are already 
numerous enough to define beyond risk of intelligent doubt 
the direction that Shakespeare's career followed. Its general 
outline is fully established by a continuous and unimpeachable 
chain of oral tradition, which survives from the seventeenth 
century, and by documentary evidence — far more documen- 
tary evidence — than exists in the case of Shakespeare's great 
literary contemporaries. How many distinguished Eliza- 
bethan and Jacobean authors have shared the fate of John 
Webster, next to Shakespeare the most eminent tragic 
dramatist of the era, of whom no positive biographic fact 
survives ? 

It may be justifiable to cherish regret for the loss of 
Shakespeare's autograph papers, and of his familiar corre- 
The absence spondence. Only five signatures of Shakespeare 
survive, and no other fragments of his handwriting 



manu- 



scripts, have been discovered. Other reputed autographs 

of Shakespeare have been found in books of his time, but 
none has quite established its authenticity. Yet the absence 
of autograph material can excite scepticism of the received 
tradition only in those who are ignorant of Elizabethan liter- 
ary history — who are ignorant of the fate that invariably 
befell the original manuscripts and correspondence of Eliza- 
bethan and Jacobean poets and dramatists. Save for a few 



SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER 283 

fragments of small literary moment, no play of the era in its 
writer's autograph escaped early destruction by fire or dust- 
bin. No machinery then ensured, no custom then encouraged, 
the due preservation of the autographs of men distinguished 
for poetic genius. The amateur's passion for autograph col- 
lecting is of far later date. Provision was made in the pub- 
lic record offices, or in private muniment-rooms of great 
country mansions, for the protection of the official papers and 
correspondence of men in public life, and of manuscript 
memorials affecting the property and domestic history of 
great county families. But even in the case of men, in the 
sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, in official life who, as often 
happened, devoted their leisure to literature, autographs of 
their literary compositions have for the most part perished, 
and there usually only remain in the official depositories 
remnants of their writing about matters of official routine. 
Some documents signed by Edmund Spenser, while he was 
Secretary to the Lord Deputy of Ireland, or holding official 
positions in the Government of Ireland, survive, but where is 
the manuscript of Spenser's poems — of his Shepheards Cal- 
ender, or his great epic of the Faerie Queene? Official papers 
signed by Sir Walter Ralegh, who filled a large place in 
English public life of the period, survive, but where is any 
fragment of the manuscript of his voluminous History of the 
World? 

Not all the depositories of official and family papers in 
England, it is to be admitted, have yet been fully explored, 
and in some of them a more thorough search than has yet 
been undertaken may possibly throw new light on Shake- 
speare's biography or work. Meanwhile, instead of mourn- 
ing helplessly over the lack of material for a knowledge of 
Shakespeare's life, it becomes us to estimate aright what we 
have at our command, to study it closely in the light of the 



284 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

literary history of the epoch, and, while neglecting no op- 
portunity of bettering our information, to recognise frankly 
the activity of the destroying agencies that have been at 
work from the outset. Then we shall wonder, not why we 
know so little, but why we know so much. 



VIII 

FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 

' . . . All the learnings that his time 
Could make him the receiver of, . . . he took, 
As we do air, fast as 'twas minister'd, 
And in 's spring became a harvest.' 

Cyrribeline, I., i., 43—46. 

'His learning savours not the school-like gloss 
That most consists in echoing words and terms ... 
Nor any long or far-fetched circumstance — 
Wrapt in the curious generalties of arts — 
But a direct and analytic sum 
Of all the worth and first effects of art. 
And for his poesy, 'tis so rammed with life 
That it shall gather strength of life with being, 
And live hereafter more admired than now.' 

Ben Jonson, Poetaster, Act v., Sc. i. 

[Bibliography. — Study of foreign influences on Shakespeare's 
work has not been treated exhaustively. M. Paul Stapfer's 
Shakspeare and Classical Antiquity, 1880, covers satisfactorily 
a portion of the ground, and much that is useful may be found 
in Shakespeare's Library, edited by J. P. Collier and W. C. 
Hazlitt, 1875, and Shakespeare's Plutarch, edited by Prof. Skeat, 
1875. Mr. Churton Collins' Shakespearean Studies, 1904, and 
Mr. J. M. Robertson's Montaigne and Shakespeare, 1897, throw 
light on portions of the topic, although all the conclusions 
reached cannot be fully accepted. Of the indebtedness of 
Elizabethan writers to Italian and French poets, much has 
been collected by the present writer in his introduction to 
Elizabethan Sonnets, 'An English Garner' (2 vols., 1904).] 



Art and letters of the supreme kind, we are warned by 
Goethe, know nothing of the petty restrictions of nationality. 
Shakespeare, the greatest poet of the world, is claimed to be 

385 



286 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

the property of the world. Some German writers have car- 
Shake- r * ec * tms ar g ument further. They have treated 
speare's Shakespeare as one of themselves, and the only 
repute. complaint that Germans have been known of late 
years to make of Shakespeare is that he had the inferior 
taste to be born an Englishman. 

The interval between English and French literary senti- 
ment is far wider than that between English and German 

literary sentiment. It is therefore significant to 
In France. 

note that France, too, regards Shakespeare as an 

embodiment of that highest kind of power of the human intel- 
lect which gives a claim of kinship with him to every think- 
ing man, no matter what his race or country. Victor Hugo 
recognised only three men as really memorable in the world's 
history; Moses and Homer were two of them, Shakespeare 
was the third. The elder Dumas, the prince of romancers, 
gave even more pointed expression to his faith in Shake- 
speare's pre-eminence in the Pantheon, not of any single 
nation or era, but of the everlasting universe. Dumas set 
the English dramatist next to God in the cosmic system: 
' After God Shakespeare has created most.' 

In presence of so exalted an estimate there is something 
bathetic, something hardly magnanimous, in insisting on the 

comparatively minor matter of fact that Shake- 
Shake- ^ J 

speare's speare was an Englishman, a kinsman of the Eng- 

patriotism. 

hsh-speaking peoples, born m the sixteenth cen- 
tury in the heart of England, and enjoying experiences which 
were common to all contemporary Englishmen of the same 
station in life. Yet Shakespeare's identity with England — 
with the English-speaking race — is a circumstance that 
accurate scholarship compels us to keep well before our 
minds. It is a circumstance which Shakespeare himself 
presses on our notice in his works. Shakespeare was not 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 287 

superior to the ordinary, natural, healthy, instinct of 
patriotism. English history he studied in a patriotic light, 
even if it be admitted that his patriotism was a well-regulated 
sentiment which sought the truth. In his English History 
plays he made contributions to a national epic. His His- 
tories are detached books of an English Iliad. They are no 
blind heroic glorifications of the nation; Shakespeare's kings 
are more remarkable for their failings than their virtues. 
But Shakespeare pays repeated homage to his own country, 
to the proud independence which its geographical position 
emphasised, to the duty laid by nature on its inhabitants of 
mastering the seas that encompass it: 

'England bound in with the triumphant sea, 
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege 
Of wat'ry Neptune.' 

The significance of the sea for Englishmen was recognised 
by Shakespeare as fully as by any English writer. His lines 
glow with exceptional thrill when he writes of 

'The natural bravery of the isle, which stands 
As Neptune's park, ribbed and belted in 
, With rocks unscaleable, and roaring waters.' 

None but an Englishman could have apostrophised England 
as — 

'This precious stone, set in a silver sea, 
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.' 

Shakespeare's great contemporary, Bacon, bequeathed by 
will his name and memory to men's charitable speeches, and 
to foreign nations, and the next ages. Shake- Hisnext- 
speare made no testamentary dispositions of his of_km - 
name and memory, and by default his name and memory 
become the heritage of the English-speaking peoples, his 
next-of-kin. 



288 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



ii 

But the depth of Shakespeare's interest in his country and 

her fortunes, his instinctive identification of himself with 

England and Englishmen, is a fact of secondary 
Foreign 
influence importance in any fruitful diagnosis of his genius 

bethan or work. Neither Elizabethan literature nor his 

spacious contribution to it came to birth in insular 

isolation; they form part of the European literature of the 

Renaissance. 

Full of suggestiveness are the facts that Shakespeare was 
born in the year of Michael Angelo's death and of Galileo's 
birth, and that he died in the same year as Cervantes. He 
was sharer of the enlightenment of the great era which saw 
the new birth of the human intellect. 

No student will dispute the proposition that Elizabethan 
England was steeped in foreign influences. Elizabethan 
literature abounded in translations from Greek, Latin, Italian, 
French, and Spanish, in adaptations of every manner of 
foreign literary effort. The spirit and substance of foreign 
literature were among the elements of which Elizabethan 
literature was compounded. Literary forms which were im- 
ported from abroad, like the sonnet and blank verse, became 
indigenous to Elizabethan England. The Elizabethan drama, 
the greatest literary product of the Elizabethan epoch, was 
built largely upon classical foundations, and its plots were 
framed on stories invented by the novelists of the Italian 
Renaissance. Shakespeare described an Elizabethan gallant 
or man of fashion as buying ' his doublet in Italy, his round 
hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour 
everywhere.' The remark might easily be applied figuratively 
to the habiliments — to the characteristics — of Elizabethan 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 289 

literature. The dress and fashion of Elizabethan literature 
were more often than not Continental importations. 

The freedom with which the Elizabethans adapted con- 
temporary poetry of France and Italy at times seems in- 
consistent with the dictates of literary honesty. Elizabethan 
Many a poem, which was issued in Elizabethan plagiarism. 
England as an original composition, proves on investigation 
to be an ingenious translation from another tongue. The 
practice of unacknowledged borrowing went far beyond the 
limits which a high standard of literary morality justifies. 
Such action was tolerated to an extent to which no other 
great literary epoch seems to offer a parallel. The greatest 
of the Elizabethans did not disdain on occasion to transfer 
secretly to their pages phrases and ideas drawn directly from 
foreign books. But it is unhistorical to exaggerate the sig- 
nificance of these foreign loans, whether secret or acknowl- 
edged. The national spirit was strong enough in Elizabethan 
England to maintain the individuality of its literature in the 
broad current. Despite the eager welcome which was ex- 
tended to foreign literary forms and topics, despite the easy 
tolerance of plagiarism, the foreign influences, so far from 
suppressing native characteristics, ultimately invigorated, 
fertilised, and chastened them. 



in 

Shakespeare's power of imagination was as fertile as that 
of any man known to history, but he had another power which 
is rarely absent from great poets, the power of ghake- 
absorbing or assimilating the fruits of reading. ^^i|. 
Spenser, Milton, Burns, Keats, and Tennyson had tive power, 
the like power, but probably none had it in quite the same 
degree as Shakespeare. In his case, as in the case of the 

T 



290 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

other poets, this power of assimilation strengthened, rendered 
more robust, the productive power of his imagination. This 
assimilating power is as well worth minute study and careful 
definition as any other of Shakespeare's characteristics. 

The investigation requires in the investigator a wide lit- 
erary knowledge and a finely balanced judgment. Short- 
sighted critics, misapprehending the significance of his career, 
have sometimes credited Shakespeare with exceptional igno- 
rance, even illiteracy. They have oracularly declared him to 
be a natural genius, owing nothing to the learning and 
literature that came before him, or were contemporary with 
him. That view is contradicted point-blank by the external 
facts of his education, and the internal facts of his work. 
A more modern type of critic has gone to the opposite ex- 
treme, and has credited Shakespeare with all the learning of 
an ideal professor of literature. This notion is as illusory 
as the other, and probably it has worked more mischief. 
This notion has led to the foolish belief that the facts of 
Shakespeare's career are inconsistent with the facts of his 
achievement. It is a point of view that has been accepted 
without serious testing by those half-informed persons who 
argue that the plays of Shakespeare must have come from 
the pen of one far more highly educated than we know Shake- 
speare to have been. 

The two views of Shakespeare's equipment of learning 
were put very epigrammatically by critics writing a century 
and a half ago. One then said ' the man who doubts the 
learning of Shakespeare has none of his own ' ; the other 
critic asserted that ' he who allows Shakespeare had learning 
ought to be looked upon as a detractor from the glory of 
Great Britain.' 

Each of these apophthegms contains a sparse grain of 
truth. The whole truth lies between the two. Shakespeare 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 291 

was obviously no scholar, but he was widely read in the 
literature that was at the disposal of cultivated men of his 
day. All that he read passed quickly into his mind, but did 
not long retain there the precise original form. It was at 
once assimilated, digested, transmuted by his always dominant 
imagination, and, when it came forth again in a recognisable 
shape, it bore, except in the rarest instances, the stamp of his 
great individuality, rather than the stamp of its source. 

Shakespeare's mind may best be likened to a highly sen- 
sitised photographic plate, which need only be exposed for 
the hundredth part of a second to anything in life Theinstan- 
or literature, in order to receive upon its surface p^^of 
the firm outline of a picture which could be de- perception. 
veloped and reproduced at will. If Shakespeare's mind for 
the hundredth part of a second came in contact in an alehouse 
with a burly good-humoured toper, the conception of a 
Falstaff found instantaneous admission to his brain. The 
character had revealed itself to him in most of its involutions, 
as quickly as his eye caught sight of its external form, and 
his ear caught the sound of the voice. Books offered Shake- 
speare the same opportunity of realising human life and 
experience. A hurried perusal of an Italian story of a Jew 
in Venice conveyed to him the mental picture of Shylock, 
with all his racial temperament in energetic action, and all 
the background of Venetian scenery and society accurately 
defined. A few hours spent over Plutarch's Lives brought 
into being in Shakespeare's brain the true aspects of Roman 
character and Roman aspiration. Whencesoever the external 
impressions came, whether from the world of books or the 
world of living men, the same mental process was at work, 
the same visualising instinct which made the thing, which he 
saw or read of, a living and a lasting reality. 



292 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



IV 

In any estimate of the extent of foreign influence on Shake- 
speare's work, it is well at the outset to realise the opportuni- 
ties of acquaintance with foreign literatures that were opened 
to him in early life. A great man's education or mental 
training is not a process that stops with his school or his 
college days; it is in progress throughout his life. But youth- 
ful education usually suggests the lines along which future 
intellectual development may proceed. 

At the grammar school at Stratford-on-Avon, where Shake- 
speare may be reasonably presumed to have spent seven years 

of boyhood, a sound training in the elements of 
Early in- 
struction classical learning was at the disposal of all comers, 
in Latin. _ . . n , 

I he general instruction was mainly confined to 

the Latin language and literature. From the Latin accidence, 
boys of the period, at schools of the type of that at Strat- 
ford, were led, through Latan conversation books, — books of 
Latin phrases to be used in conversation, like the Sententice 
Pueriles and Lily's Grammar, — to the perusal of such authors 
as Seneca, Terence, Cicero, Virgil, Plautus, Ovid, and 
Horace. Nor was modern Latin literature altogether over- 
looked. The Latin eclogues of a popular Renaissance poet 
of Italy, Baptista Mantuanus — ' the good old Mantuan ' 
Shakespeare familiarly calls him — were often preferred to 
Virgil's for youthful students. Latin was the warp and 
woof of every Elizabethan grammar school curriculum. 

The rudiments of Greek were occasionally taught in Eliza- 
bethan grammar schools to very promising pupils ; but it 
is doubtful if Greek were accessible to Stratford schoolboys. 
It is unlikely that Shakespeare knew anything of Greek at 
first hand. Curious verbal coincidences have been detected 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 293 

between sentences in the great Greek plays and in Shake- 
spearian drama. Striking these often are. In the Electra of 
Sophocles, which is akin in its leading motive to Apparent 
Hamlet, the chorus consoles Electra for the sup- j^Greek 6 
posed death of Orestes with the same expressions lan e ua g e - 
of sympathy as those with which Hamlet's mother and uncle 
seek to console him on the loss of his father: — 

'Remember Electra, your father whence you sprang is mortal, wherefore 
grieve not much, for by all of us has this debt of suffering to be paid.' 

In Hamlet are the familiar sentences — 

'Thou know'st 'tis common; all that live must die; 
But, you must know, your father lost a father; 
That father lost, lost his . . . but to persever 
In obstinate condolement is a course 
Of impious stubbornness.' 

Shakespeare's ' prophetic soul,' which is found both in 

Hamlet and in the Sonnets, is matched by the 7rpo/iavris 

0u//os of Euripides's Andromache (1075). Hamlet's 'sea 

of troubles ' exactly translates the Ka/cwv 7reAayos of iEschylus's 

Persae (442). Such parallels could be easily ex- 
Accidental 
tended. But none compels us to admit textual coinci- 

d6D.C€?S 

knowledge of JEschylus or Sophocles or Eurip- 
ides on Shakespeare's part. They barely do more than 
suggest the community of sentiment that binds all great 
thinkers together. 

Something of the Greek spirit lived in Latin, French, 
Italian, and English translations and adaptations of the 
masterpieces of Greek literature. Shakespeare gained some 
conception of the main features of Greek literature through 
those conduits. At least one epigram of the Greek anthology 
he turned through a Latin version into a sonnet. But there 
was no likelihood that he sought at first hand in Greek poetry 
for gnomic reflections on the commonest vicissitudes of human 



294 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

life. Poets who write quite independently of one another 
often clothe such reflections in almost identical phrase. When 
we find a universal sentiment common to Shakespeare and a 
foreign author, it is illogical to infer that the sentiment has 
come to Shakespeare from that foreign author, unless we 
can establish two most important propositions. First, external 
fact must render such a transference probable or possible. 
There must be reasonable ground for the belief that the 
alleged borrower had direct access to the work from which he 
is supposed to borrow. Secondly, either the verbal similarity 
or the peculiar distinctiveness of the sentiment must be such 
as to render it easier to believe that the utterance has been 
directly borrowed than that it has arisen independently in two 
separate minds. 

In the case of the Greek parallels of phrase it is 
easier to believe that the expressions reached Shakespeare in- 
dependently — by virtue of the independent working of the in- 
tuitive faculty — than that he directly borrowed them of their 
Greek prototypes. Most of the parallelisms of thought and 
phrase between Shakespearian and the Attic drama are prob- 
ably fortuitous, are accidental proofs of consanguinity of 
spirit rather than evidences of Shakespeare's study of Greek. 

But although the Greek language is to be placed outside 
Shakespeare's scope at school and in later life, we may 
Knowledge safely defy the opinion of Dr. Farmer, the Cam- 
and renC bridge scholar of the eighteenth century, who 

Italian. enunciated in his famous Essay on Shakespeare's 

Learning the theory that Shakespeare knew no tongue but his 
own, and owed whatever knowledge he displayed of the 
classics and of Italian and French literature to English trans- 
lations. English translations of foreign literature undoubt- 
edly abounded in Elizabethan literature. But Shakespeare 
was not wholly dependent on them. Several of the books in 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 295 

French or Italian, whence Shakespeare derived the plots of 

his dramas, were not in Elizabethan days rendered into 

English. Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques is the source of 

Hamlet's history. In Ser Giovanni's Italian collection of 

stories, called II Pecorone, alone may be found the full story 

of the Merchant of Venice. Cinthio's Hecatommithi alone 

supplies the tale of Othello. None of these foreign books 

were accessible in English translations when Shakespeare 

wrote. On more general grounds the theory of his ignorance 

is adequately confuted. A boy with Shakespeare's exceptional 

alertness of intellect, during whose school days a training in 

Latin classics lay within reach, would scarcely lack in future 

years the means of access to the literatures of France and 

Italy which were written in cognate languages. 

With Latin and French and with the Latin poets of the 

school curriculum, Shakespeare in his early writings openly 

and unmistakably acknowledged his acquaintance. 

In Henry V. the dialogue in many scenes is carried French 

quotations. 
on in French which is grammatically accurate if 

not idiomatic. In the mouth of his schoolmasters, Holofernes 
in Love's Labour's Lost and Sir Hugh Evans in The Merry 
Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare placed Latin phrases drawn 
directly from Lily's popular school grammar, and from the 
Sententiae Pueriles, the conversation book used by boys at 
school. The influence of a popular school author, the volumi- 
nous Latin poet Ovid, was especially apparent throughout 
his earliest literary work, both poetic and dramatic. Ovid's 
Metamorphoses was peculiarly familiar to him. Hints drawn 
directly from it are discernible in all his early poems and 
plays as well as in The Tempest, his latest play (v. i. 33 
seq.). Ovid's Latin, which was accessible to Shakespeare 
since his school days, never faded altogether from his 
memory. 



296 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

We have, however, to emphasise at every turn the obvious 

fact that Shakespeare was no finished scholar and that he 

was no scholarly expert in any language but his 
Lack of 
scholar- own. He makes, in classical subjects, precisely 

those mistakes which are impossible in a finished 
scholar. Homer's "YTrepiW, a name of the sun, which 
Ovid exactly reproduces as Hyperion, figures in Shake- 
speare's pages as Hyperion — ' Hyperion to a satyr ' — with 
every one of the four syllables wrongly measured. The whole- 
sale error in quantity would be impossible in a classical 
scholar, and Keats's submissive repetition of it is clear evi- 
dence that, despite his intuitive grasp of the classical spirit, 
he had no linguistic knowledge of Greek. Again, Shake- 
speare's closest adaptations of Ovid's Metamorphoses, despite 
his personal knowledge of Latin, reflect the tautological 
phraseology of the popular English version by Arthur Gold- 
ing, of which some seven editions were issued in Shakespeare's 
lifetime. From Plautus Shakespeare drew the plot of The 
Comedy of Errors, but there is reason to believe that Shake- 
speare consulted an English version as well as the original 
text. Like many later students of Latin, he did not disdain 
the use of translations when they were ready to his hand. 
Shakespeare's lack of exact scholarship explains the ' small 
Latin and less Greek ' with which he was credited by his 
scholarly friend Ben Jonson. But the report of his early 
biographer, Aubrey, ' that Shakespeare understood Latin 
pretty well,' need not be contested. His knowledge of French 
in early life may be estimated to have equalled his knowledge 
of Latin, while he probably had quite sufficient acquaintance 
with Italian to enable him to discern the drift of any Italian 
poem or novel that reached his hand. 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 297 



There is no evidence that Shakespeare was a widely trav- 
elled man. It is improbable that he completed his early 
education in a foreign tour, and that he came shake- 
under foreign literary influences at their foun- traveller 
tain-heads, in the places of their origin. Young abroad - 
Elizabethans of rank commonly made a foreign tour before 
completing their education, but Shakespeare was not a young 
man of rank. It was indeed no uncommon experience for men 
of the humbler classes to work off some of the exuberance 
of youth by ' trailing a pike ' in foreign lands, serving as 
volunteers with foreign armies. From the neighbourhood 
of Stratford itself when Shakespeare was just of age many 
youths of his own years crossed to the Low Countries. They 
went to Holland to fight the Spaniards under the command of 
the great Lord of Warwickshire, the owner of Kenilworth, 
the Queen's favourite, the Earl of Leicester. A book was 
once written to show that one of these adventurous volunteers, 
who bore the name of Will Shakespeare, was Shakespeare 
himself, but the identification is a mistake. William Shake- 
speare, the Earl of Leicester's soldier, came from a village 
in the neighbourhood of Stratford where the name was com- 
mon. He was not the dramatist. 

Some have argued that in his professional capacity of actor 
Shakespeare went abroad. English actors in Shakespeare's 
day occasionally combined to make professional tours through 
foreign lands where court society invariably gave them a 
hospitable reception. In Denmark, Germany, Austria, Hol- 
land, and France, many dramatic performances were given 
before royal audiences by English actors throughout Shake- 
speare's active career. But it is improbable that Shakespeare 
joined any of these expeditions. Actors of small account at 



298 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

home mainly took part in them, and Shakespeare quickly 

filled a leading place in the theatrical profession. Lists of 

those Englishmen who paid professional visits abroad are 

extant, and Shakespeare's name occurs in none of them. 

It seems unlikely that Shakespeare ever set foot on the 

Continent of Europe in either a private or pro- 
Views of 
foreign fessional capacity. He doubtless would have set 

travel. 

foot there if he could have done so, but the oppor- 
tunity did not offer. He knew the dangers of insular prejudice: 

Hath Britain all the sun that shines ? Day, night, 
Are they not but in Britain ? . . . prithee, think 
There's livers out of Britain.' 

He acknowledged the educational value of foreign travel when 
rightly indulged in. He points out in one of his earliest plays 
how wise fathers 

'Put forth their sons, to seek preferment out 
Some to the wars to try their fortune there; 
Some to discover islands far away; 
Some to the studious universities [on the Continent]'; 

how the man who spent all his time at home was at a dis- 
advantage 

'In having known no travaile in his youth.' 

' A perfect man ' was one who was 'tried and tutored in the 
world ' outside his native country. 

' Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.' 

Some touch of a counsel of perfection may be latent in 
these passages. Elsewhere Shakespeare betrayed the stay-at- 
home's impatience of immoderate enthusiasm for foreign 
sights and customs. He denounced with severity the uncon- 
trolled passion for travel. He scorned the travelled English- 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 299 

man's affectations, his laudation of foreign manners, his ex- 
aggerated admiration of foreign products as compared with 
home products: — 

'Farewell, monsieur traveller,' says Rosalind to the melancholy Jaques. 
'Look you lisp and wear strange suits and disable all the benefits of your 
own country, and be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God 
for making you that countenance you are, or I will scarce think you have 
swam in a gondola.' 

But many who reject theories of Shakespeare's visits to 
Florence or Germany or Flanders are unwilling to forego 

the conjecture that Shakespeare had been in Italy. 

Imagina- 
To Italy — especially to cities of Northern Italy, tive affinity 

with Italy. 

like Venice, Padua, Verona, Mantua, and Milan — 
Shakespeare makes frequent and familiar reference, and 
he supplies many a realistic portrayal of Italian life and 
sentiment. But the fact that he represents Valentine in The 
Two Gentlemen (i. i. 71) as travelling from Verona to Milan 
(both inland cities) by sea, and the fact that Prospero in 
The Tempest embarks in a ship at the gates of Milan (i. ii. 
129-44) renders it almost impossible that he could have 
gathered his knowledge of Northern Italy from personal 
observation. Shakespeare doubtless owed all his knowledge 
of Italy to the verbal reports of travelled friends and to 
Italian books, the contents of which he had a rare power of 
assimilating and vitalising. The glowing light which his 
quick imagination shed on Italian scenes lacked the literal 
precision and detailed accuracy with which first-hand explora- 
tion must have endowed it. 



VI 

The only safe source of information about Shakespeare's 
actual knowledge in his adult years either of the world of 



300 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

literature or of the world of men is his extant written work. 
It is a more satisfying source than any conjectures of his 
personal experiences. What are the general tracts of foreign 
Internal knowledge, what are the spheres of foreign in- 

oFforeign fluence with which Shakespeare's work — his plays 
influence. an( j p 0ems — prove him to have been familiar? It 
is quite permissible to reply to such questions without further 
detailed consideration of the precise avenues through which 
those tracts of knowledge were in Shakespeare's day ap- 
proachable. With how many of the topics or conceptions of 
great foreign literature does the internal evidence of his 
work show him to have been acquainted? 

Firstly, it is obvious that the tales and personages of classi- 
cal mythology — the subject-matter of classical poetry — were 
References among his household words. When the second 
Greek servant in The Taming of the Shrew asks the 

mythology, drunken Kit Sly:— 'Dost thou love pictures?' 
Shakespeare conjures up stories of classical folk-lore with 
such fluent ease as to imply complete familiarity with most 
of the conventional themes of classical poetry. ' Dost thou 
love pictures ? ' says the servant. He answers his own 
question thus: — 

'Then we will fetch thee straight 
Adonis painted by a running brook, 
And Cytherea all in sedges hid, 

Lord. We'll show thee Io as she was a maid, 

3rd Serv. Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood, 

Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds, 
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep.' 

All that it was of value for Shakespeare to know of Adonis, 
Cytherea, Io, Daphne, Apollo, flowed in the current of his 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 301 

thought. Without knowledge of Greek he assimilated the 
pellucid fancy and imagery that played about Greek verse. 
The Greek language was unknown to him. But he compre- 
hended the artistic significance of Greek mythology, of 
which Greek poetry was woven, as effectively as the learned 
poets of the Italian and French Renaissance. 

So, too, with the general trend and leading episodes of 
Greek history. Greek tradition, both in mythical and in 

historic times, was as open a book to him as Greek 

Mythical 
poetic mythology. He had not studied Greek his- history of 

tory in the spirit of an historical scholar. Troilus 
and Cressida indicates no critical study of the authorities for 
the Trojan War, but the play leaves no doubt of Shakespeare's 
intuitive grasp of the leading features and details of the 
whole story of Troy as it was known to his contemporaries. 
In Athens — the capital city of Greece, the main home of 
Greek culture — he places the scene of more than one of his 
plays. The names of Greek heroes from Agamemnon, Ulysses, 
Nestor, and Theseus, to Alcibiades and Pericles, figure in his 
dramatis persona?. The names are often so employed as to 
suggest little or nothing of the true historic significance at- 
taching to them, but their presence links Shakespeare with the 
interest in Greek achievement which was a corner-stone of 
the Renaissance. The use to which he put Greek nomen- 
clature is an involuntary act of homage to ' the glory that 
was Greece.' 

' The grandeur that was Rome ' made, however, more 
abundant appeal to Shakespeare. The history of Rome in its 
great outlines and its great episodes clearly fascinated him 
as deeply as it fascinated any of the leaders of the Renais- 
sance. The subject in one shape or another was always in- 
viting his thought and pen. His chief narrative poem 
Lucrece — one of his first efforts in literature — treats with 



302 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

exuberant eagerness of a legend of an early period in Roman 
tt. , , history — of regal Rome. When Shakespeare's 
Rome. dramatic powers were at their maturity he sought 

with concentrated strength and insight dramatic material in 
the history of Rome at her zenith, as it was revealed in the 
pages of the Greek biographer Plutarch. No lover of Shake- 
speare would complain if the final judgment to be pronounced 
on his work were based on his three Roman tragedies: the 
austere Coriolanus, with its single but unflaggingly sustained 
dramatic interest, the scene of which is laid in the early 
days of the Roman Republic; the tragedy of Julius Caesar, a 
penetrating political study of the latest phase of the Roman 
Republic, and the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, a magi- 
cal presentment and interpretation of an episode in the early 
history of the Roman Empire. To Shakespeare's mind, any 
survey of human endeavour, from which was excluded the 
experience of Rome with her ' conquests, glories, triumphs, 
spoils,' would have ' shrunk to little measure.' 

Of Shakespeare's acquaintance with the literature of Rome 
as represented by Ovid, the proofs are too numerous and 
familiar to need rehearsal. But there are more recondite 
signs that he had come under the spell of the greatest of 
Latin poems, the Mneid of that poet Virgil, to whom he was 
likened in his epitaph. ' One speech in it I chiefly loved,' 
said Hamlet : ' 'twas iEneas' tale to Dido ; and thereabout 
of it especially, where he speaks of Priam's slaughter.' 
Shakespeare recalls the same Virgilian story in his beautiful 
and tender lines: — 

'In such a night 
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand 
Upon the wild sea banks, and waft her love 
To come again to Carthage.' 

Not Roman poetry only, but also Roman drama, fell within the 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 303 

scope of Shakespeare's observation. The humours of Plautus 
are reproduced with much fidelity in The Comedy of Errors. 
If we leave classical history and literature for the foreign 
literatures that were more nearly contemporary with Shake- 
speare, evidence of devotion to one of the great- 

r ' & Italian 

est and most prolonged series of foreign literary history and 

literature, 
efforts crowds upon us. With Italy — the Italy of 

the Renaissance — his writings show him to have been in full 
sympathy through the whole range of his career. The name 
of every city of modern Italy which had contributed anything 
to the enlightenment of modern Europe finds repeated men- 
tion in his plays. Florence and Padua, Milan and Mantua, 
Venice and Verona are the most familiar scenes of Shake- 
spearian drama. To many Italian cities or districts definite 
characteristics that are perfectly accurate are allotted. 
Padua, with its famous university, is called the nursery of the 
arts; Pisa is renowned for the gravity of its citizens; Lom- 
bardy is the pleasant garden of great Italy. The mystery 
of Venetian waterways excited Shakespeare's curiosity. The 
Italian word ' traghetto,' which is reserved in Venice for the 
anchorage of gondolas, Shakespeare transferred to his pages 
under the slightly disguised and unique form of 'traject.' 

In the early period of his career Shakespeare's discipleship 
to Italian influences was perhaps most conspicuous. In his 
first great experiment in tragedy, his Romeo and Juliet, he 
handled a story wholly of Italian origin and identified him- 
self with the theme with a completeness that admits no doubt 
of his affinity with Italian feeling. That was the earliest of 
his plays in which he proved himself the possessor of a 
poetic and dramatic instinct of unprecedented quality. But 
Italian influences and signs of sympathy with the spirit of 
Italy mark every stage of his work. They dominate the main 
plot of the maturest of his comedies, Much Ado about Noth- 



304 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

ing; they colour one of his latest works, his serious romantic 
play of Cymbeline. 

The Italian novel is one of the most characteristic forms 
of Italian literature, and the Italian novel constituted the 
The Italian mam field whence Shakespeare derived his plots, 
novel. Apart from Love's Labour's Lost and A Midsum- 

mer Night's Dream, the plots of which, while compounded 
of many borrowed simples, are largely of Shakespeare's own 
invention, apart, too, from The Comedy of Errors, which was 
adapted from Plautus, there is no comedy by Shakespeare of 
which the fable does not owe something to an Italian novel. 
The story of All's Well that Ends Well, and the Imogen 
story of Cymbeline, are of the invention of Boccaccio — of 
Boccaccio, the master-genius of the Italian novelists. Much 
Ado about Nothing and Twelfth Night come from Bandello, 
the chief of Boccaccio's disciples, and Measure for Meas- 
ure is from Cinthio, a later disciple of Boccaccio, almost 
Shakespeare's contemporary. The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 
although based on a Spanish pastoral romance, derives hints 
from the Italian of both Bandello and Cinthio. 

How far Shakespeare had direct recourse to Boccaccio, 
Bandello, and Cinthio is an open question. The chief Italian 
Means of novels were diffused in translations and adapta- 
thelttaUan tions throughout Europe. The work of Bandello, 
novel. -who enjoyed, of all Italian novelists, the highest 

popularity in the sixteenth century, was constantly reappear- 
ing in Italian, French, and English shapes, which rendered 
easy the study of his tales in the absence of access to the 
original version. Shakespeare readily identified himself with 
the most popular literary currents of his epoch, and worked 
with zest on Bandello's most widely disseminated stories. 
Before he wrote Much Ado About Nothing, the story by 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 305 

Bandello, which it embodies, had experienced at least four 
adaptations; it had been translated into French; it had been 
retold in Italian by Ariosto in his epic of Orlando Furioso; 
it had been dramatised in English by one student of Ariosto, 
and had been translated into English out of the great Italian 
poet by another (Sir John Harington). Similarly, Bandello's 
tale, which gave Shakespeare his cue for Twelfth Night, had 
first been rendered into French; it was then translated from 
French into English; it was afterwards adapted anew in 
English prose from the Italian; it was dramatised in Italian 
by three dramatists independently, and two of these Italian 
dramas had been translated into French. Shakespeare's play 
of Twelfth Night was at least the ninth version which 
Bandello's fable had undergone. 

There are two plays of Shakespeare which compel us in 
the present state of our knowledge to the conclusion that 

Shakespeare had recourse to the Italian itself. 

Othello and 
The story of Othello as far as we know was solely Merchant 

of Venice. 
accessible to him in the Italian novel of Cinthio. 

Many of Cinthio's stories had been translated into English; 
many more had been translated into French, but there is no 
rendering into either French or English of Othello's tragical 
history. Again in the Merchant of Venice we trace the direct 
influence of II Pecorone, a fourteenth-century collection of 
Italian novels by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino; that collection re- 
mained unpublished till 1558, and was in Shakespeare's day 
alone to be found in the Italian original. The bare story of 
the Jew and the pound of flesh was very generally accessible. 
But it is only in Shakespeare's play and in II Pecorone that 
the defaulting Christian debtor, whose pound of flesh is 
demanded by his Jewish creditor, is rescued through the 
advocacy of ' The Lady of Belmont,' wife of the Christian 

U 



306 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

debtor's friend. The management of the plot in the Italian 

novel is indeed more closely followed by Shakespeare than 

was his ordinary habit. 

The Italian fable, it is to be admitted, merely formed as 

a rule the basis of his structure. Having surveyed all its 

possibilities, he altered and transmuted the story 
Shake- 
speare's with the utmost freedom as his artistic spirit 
radical ^ , , . . 

methods of moved him. His changes bear weighty testimony 
to the greatness of his conceptions of both life 
and literature. In Measure for Measure, by diverting the 
course of an Italian novel at a critical point he not merely 
showed his artistic ingenuity but gave dramatic dignity and 
unusual elevation to a degraded and repellent theme. Again, 
in Othello, the tragic purpose is planned by him anew. The 
scales never fall from Othello's eyes in the Italian novel. 
He dies in the belief that his wife is guilty. Shakespeare's 
catastrophe is invested with new and fearful intensity by 
making Iago's cruel treachery known to Othello at the last, 
after Iago's perfidy has compelled the noble-hearted Moor in 
his groundless jealousy to murder his gentle and innocent 
wife Desdemona. Too late Othello sees in Shakespeare's 
tragedy that he is the dupe of I ago and that his wife is 
guiltless. But, despite the magnificent freedom with which 
Shakespeare often handled the Italian novel, it is to the 
suggestion of that form of Italian literary art that his 
dramatic achievements owe a profound and extended debt. 

Not that in the field of Italian literature Shakespeare's debt 
was wholly confined to the novel: Italian lyric poetry 

left its impress on the most inspiring of Shake- 
Petrarch. » 

speare s lyric flights. Every sonneteer or West- 
ern Europe acknowledged Petrarch (of the fourteenth cen- 
tury) to be his master, and from Petrarchan inspiration came 
the form and much of the spirit of Shakespeare's sonnets. 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 307 

Petrarch's ambition to exalt in the sonnet the ideal type of 

beauty, and to glorify ethereal sentiment, is the final cause of 

Shakespeare's contributions to sonnet-literature. At first hand 

Shakespeare may have known little or even nothing of the 

Italian's poetry which he once described with a touch of 

scorn as ' the numbers that Petrarch flowed in.' But English, 

French, and contemporary adaptations of Petrarch's ideas 

and phrases were abundant enough to relieve Shakespeare of 

the necessity of personal recourse to the original text while 

the Petrarchan influence was ensnaring him. The cultured 

air of Elizabethan England was charged with Petrarchan 

conceits and imagery. Critics may differ as to the precise 

texture or dimensions of the bonds which unite the two 

poets, but they cannot question their existence. 

Nor was Shakespeare wholly ignorant of another mode in 

which Italian imaginative power manifested itself. He was 

not wholly ignorant of Italian art. In The Win- 

m f xi Italian art. 

ter s Tale he speaks of a contemporary Italian 

artist, Giulio Romano, with singular enthusiasm. He describes 
the supposed statue of Hermione as ' performed by that rare 
Italian master, Giulio Romano, who, had he himself eternity 
and could put breath into his work, would beguile Nature of 
her custom, so perfectly is he her ape.' No loftier praise 
could be bestowed on a worker in the plastic arts. Giulio 
Romano is better known as a painter than a sculptor, but 
sculpture occupied him as well as painting in early life, and 
although Michael Angelo's name might perhaps have been 
more appropriate and obvious, Shakespeare was guilty of 
no inaccuracy in associating with Romano's name the sur- 
passing qualities of Italian Renaissance sculpture. 



308 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



VII 

Of the great foreign authors who outside Italy were more 
or less contemporary with the Elizabethans, those of France 
P etrv of loom large in the Shakespearian arena. No Eliza- 
France, bethan disdained the close study of sixteenth-cen- 
tury literature of France. Elizabethan poetry finally ripened 
in the light of the lyric effort of Ronsard and his fellow- 
masters of the Pleiade School. Ronsard and his friends, 
Du Bellay and De Baif, had shortly before Shakespeare's 
birth deliberately set themselves the task of refining their 
country's poetry by imitating in French the classical form 
and spirit. Their design met with rare success. They brought 
into being a mass of French verse which is comparable by 
virtue of its delicate imagery and simple harmonies with the 
best specimens of the Greek anthology. It was under the 
banner of the Pleiade chieftains and as translators of poems 
by one or other of their retainers, that Spenser and Daniel, 
Lodge and Chapman, set forth on their literary careers. 
Shakespeare could not escape altogether from the toils of 
this active influence. It was Ronsard's example which in- 
troduced into Elizabethan poetry the classical conceit, which 
Shakespeare turned to magnificent advantage in his sonnets, 
that the poet's verses are immortal and can alone give immor- 
tality to those whom he commemorates. Insistence on the 
futility of loveless beauty which lives for itself alone, adula- 
tion of a patron in terms of affection which are borrowed from 
the vocabulary of love, expressions of fear that a patron's 
favour may be alienated by rival interests, were characteristic 
motives of the odes and sonnets of the Pleiade, and, though 
they came to France from Italy, they seem to have first 
caught Shakespeare's ear in their French guise. 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 309 

When Shakespeare in his Sonnets (No. xliv.) reflects with 
vivid precision on the nimbleness of thought which 

'can jump both sea and land 
As soon as think the place where he would be,' 

he seems to repeat a note that the French sonneteers con- 
stantly sounded without much individual variation. It is 
difficult to believe that Shakespeare's description of Thought's 
triumphs over space, and its power of leaping ' large lengths 
of miles,' did not directly echo Du Bellay's apostrophe to 
' Penser volage,' or the address of Du Bellay's disciple Amadis 
Jamyn to 

'Penser, qui peux en un moment grand erre 

Courir leger tout l'espace des cieux, 

Toute la terre, et les flots spacieux, 

Qui peux aussi penetrer sous la terre.' ' 

1 Sonnets to Thought are especially abundant in the poetry of sixteenth- 
century France, though they are met with in Italy. The reader may be 
interested in comparing in detail Shakespeare's Sonnet xliv. with the two 
French sonnets to which reference is made in the text. The first sonnet 
runs: 

'Penser volage, et leger comme vent, 
Qui or' au ciel, or' en mer, or' en terre 
En un moment cours et recours grand' erre, 
Voire au seiour des ombres bien souvent. 
En quelque part que voises t'eslevant 
Ou rabaissant, celle qui me fait guerre, 
Celle beaute tousiours deuant toy erre, 
Et tu la vas d'un leger pied suyvant. 
Pourquoy suis tu (o penser trop peu sage) 
Ce qui te nuit? pourquoy vas-tu sans guide, 
Par ce chemin plain d'erreur variable? 
Si de parler au moins eusses l'usage, 
Tu me rendrois de tant de peine vuide, 
Toy en repos et elle pitoyable.' 

(Du Bellat, Olive xliii.) 
The second sonnet runs : 

'Penser, qui peux en vn moment grand erre 
Courir leger tout l'espace des cieux, 
Toute la terre, et les flots spacieux, 
Qui peux aussi penetrer sous la terre : 



310 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

But Shakespeare's interest in French literature was not 

confined to the pleasant and placid art or the light ethereal 

philosophy of Ronsard's school. The burly hu- 
Rabelaia 
and morist Rabelais, who was older than Ronsard by 

a generation, and proved the strongest personality 
in the whole era of the French Renaissance, clearly came 
within the limits of Shakespeare's cognisance. The younger 
French writer, Montaigne, who was living during Shake- 
speare's first thirty-eight years of life, was no less familiar 
to the English dramatist as author of the least embarrassed 
and most suggestive reflections on human life which any 
autobiographical essayist has produced. From Montaigne, the 
typical child of the mature Renaissance in France, Shake- 
speare borrowed almost verbatim Gonzalo's description in 
The Tempest of an ideal socialistic commonwealth. 



This brief survey justifies the conclusion that an almost 
limitless tract of foreign literature lent light and heat to 
Alertness Shakespeare's intellect and imagination. He may 
foreign"" 1181 not nave come *° close quarters with much of it. 
knowledge. Litt i e f it ^id he investigate minutely. But he 

Par toy souvent celle-la qui m'enferre 
De mille traits cuisans et furieux, 
Se represente au devant de mes yeux, 
Me menacant d'vne bien longue guerre 
Que tu es vain, puis-que ie ne SQaurois 
T'accompagnant aller ou ie voudrois, 
Et discourir mes douleurs k ma Dame ! 
Las! que n'as tu le parler comme moy, 
Pour lui conter le feu de mon esmoy, 
Et lui ietter dessous le sein ma flame? ' 

(Amadis Jamyn, Sonnet xxi.) 
Tasso's sonnet (Venice 1583, i. p. 33) beginning: 'Come s'human pensier 
di granger tenta Al Iuogo,' and Ronsard's sonnet {Amours, I. clxviii.) begin- 
ning: ' Ce fol penser, pour s'envoler trop haut,' should also be studied in 
this connection. 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 311 

perceived and absorbed its form and pressure at the lightning 
pace which his intuitive faculty alone could master. We may 
apply to him his own words in his description of the training 
of his hero Posthumus, in Cymbeline. He had at command — 

' . . . All the learnings that his time 
Could make him the receiver of; which he took, 
As we do air, fast as 'twas ministered, 
And in 's spring became a harvest.' 

The world was Shakespeare's oyster which he with pen 
could open. The mere geographical aspect of his dramas 
proves his width of outlook beyond English boun- The geo _ 
daries. In no less than twenty-six plays of the f^^tof 1 
whole thirty-seven are we transported for a space view - 
to foreign towns. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, in Timon 
of Athens, Athens is our home, and so occasionally in Antony 
and Cleopatra. Ephesus was the scene of The Comedy of 
Errors and part of the play of Pericles. Messina, in Sicily, 
is presented in Much Ado About Nothing, as well as in 
Antony and Cleopatra, which also takes us to Alexandria, 
to a plain in Syria, and to Actium. Pericles introduces us to 
Antioch, Tarsus, Pentapolis, Mytilene, together with Ephesus; 
Troilus and Cressida to Troy; and Othello to Cyprus. In 
no less than five plays the action passes in Rome. Not only 
is the ancient capital of the world the scene of the Roman 
plays Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, and Antony 
and Cleopatra, but in Cymbeline much that is important to 
the plot is developed in the same surroundings. Of all the 
historic towns of northern Italy can the like story be told. 
Hardly any European country is entirely omitted from 
Shakespeare's map of the world. The Winter's Tale takes 
us to Sicily and Bohemia; Twelfth Night to an unnamed 



312 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

city in Illyria; Hamlet to Elsinore in Denmark; Measure for 

Measure to Vienna, and Love's Labour's Lost to Navarre. 

Shakespeare's plays teach much of the geography of 

Europe. But none must place unchecked reliance on the 

geographical details which Shakespeare supplies. 

graphical The want of exact scholarship which is character- 
blunders. 

istic of Shakespeare's attitude to literary study, is 

especially noticeable in his geographical assertions. He 
places a scene in The Winter's Tale in Bohemia ' in a desert 
country near the sea.' Unluckily Bohemia has no seaboard. 
Shakespeare's looseness of statement is common to him and 
at least one contemporary. In this description of his Bohe- 
mian scene, Shakespeare followed the English novelist, Robert 
Greene, from whom he borrowed the plot of A Winter's 
Tale. A fantastic endeavour has been made to justify the 
error by showing that Apulia, a province on the seacoast of 
Italy, was sometimes called Bohemia. The only just deduc- 
tion to be drawn from Shakespeare's bestowal of a seacoast on 
Bohemia, is that he declined with unscholarly indifference 
to submit himself to bonds of mere literal fact. 

Shakespeare's dramatic purpose was equally well served, 
whether his geographical information was correct or incorrect, 
and it was rarely that he attempted independent verification. 
In his Roman plays he literally depended on North's popular 
translation of Plutarch's Lives. He was content to take 
North as his final authority, and wherever North erred Shake- 
speare erred with him. In matters of classical geography 
and topography he consequently stumbled with great fre- 
quency, and quite impenitently. In Antony and Cleopatra 
Shakespeare includes Lydia among the Queen of Egypt's 
provinces or possessions. Lydia is a district in Asia Minor 
with which Cleopatra never had relation. Plutarch wrote 
quite correctly that the district of Libya in North Africa was 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 313 

for a time under the Queen of Egypt's sway. Shakespeare 
fell blindly into the error, caused by a misprint or misreading, 
of which no scholar acquainted with classical geography was 
likely to be guilty. 

Again, in Julius Caesar, there are many errors of like kind 
due to like causes — to casual acts of carelessness on the part 
of the English translator, which Shakespeare adopted with- 
out scruple. Mark Antony in Shakespeare describes the 
gardens which Caesar bequeathed to the people of Rome as 
on this side of the Tiber — on the same side as the Forum — 
where the crowded streets and population left no room for 
gardens. Plutarch had correctly described the Tiber gardens 
as lying across the Tiber, on the opposite side to that where 
the Forum lay. A very simple mistake had been committed 
by North or his printers : ' on that side of the Tiber ' had 
been misread ' on this side.' But Shakespeare was oblivious 
of a confusion, which would be readily perceived by one 
personally acquainted with Rome, or one who had studied 
Roman topography. 



IX 

But more interesting than the mere enumeration of details 
of Shakespeare's scenes or of the literature that he absorbed 
is it to consider in broad outline how his knowl- -phe 
edge of foreign literature worked on his imagina- ^"fin 
tion, how far it affected his outlook on life. How Shakespeare, 
far did Shakespeare catch the distinctive characteristics of the 
inhabitants of foreign lands and cities who fill his stage? 
How much genuine foreign spirit did he breathe into the 
foreign names? Various answers have been given to this 
inquiry. There are schools of critics which deny to Shake- 
speare's foreign creations — to the Roman characters of 



314 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

Julius Caesar, or to the Italian characters of Romeo and 
Juliet and Othello — any national or individual traits. All, 
we are told by some, are to the backbone Elizabethan Eng- 
lishmen and Englishwomen. Others insist that they are 
universal types of human nature in which national idiosyn- 
crasies have no definite place. 

Neither verdict is satisfactory. No one disputes that 
Shakespeare handled the universal features of humanity, 
the traits common to all mankind. On the surface the high- 
est manifestations of the great passions — ambition, jealousy, 
unrequited love — are the same throughout the world and 
have no peculiarly national colour. But, to the seeing eye, 
men and women, when yielding to emotions that are univer- 
sal, take something from the bent of their education, from 
the tone of the climate and scenery that environs them. The 
temperament of the untutored savage differs from that of 
the civilised man; the predominating mood of northern peo- 
ples differs from that of southern peoples. Shakespeare was 
far too enlightened a student of human nature, whether he 
met men and women in life or literature, to ignore such facts 
as these. His study of foreign literature especially brought 
them home to him, and gave him opportunities of realising 
the distinctions in human character that are due to race or 
climate. Of this knowledge he took full advantage. Love- 
making is universal, but Shakespeare recognised the diver- 
sities of amorous emotion and expression which race and 
climate engender. What contrast can be greater than the 
boisterous bluntness in which the English king, Henry v., 
gives expression to his love, and the pathetic ardour in which 
Historic t ne voun g Italians Romeo and Ferdinand urge 

sensibility. th e j r suits ? Intuitively, perhaps involuntarily, 
Shakespeare with his unrivalled sureness of insight impreg- 
nated his characters with such salient features of their 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 315 

national idiosyncrasies as made them true to the environment 
that was appointed for them in the work of fiction or history 
on which he founded his drama. As the poet read old novels 
and old chronicles, his dramatic genius stirred in him a rare 
force of historic imagination and sensibility. Study developed 
in Shakespeare an historic sense of a surer quality than that 
with which any professed historian has yet been gifted. 
Cassar and Brutus, of whom Shakespeare learned all he knew 
in the pages of Plutarch, are more alive in the drama of 
Julius Ccesar than in the pages of the historian Mommsen. 
Cleopatra is the historic queen of Egypt, and no living por- 
trait of her is known outside Shakespeare. No minor errors 
in detail destroy the historic vraisemblance of any of Shake- 
speare's dramatic pictures. 

The word ' atmosphere ' is hackneyed in the critical jargon 
of the day. Yet the term has graphic value. Shakespeare 

apprehended the true environment of the heroes 

^ Fidelity 

and heroines to whom his reading of history or to'atmos- 

phere.' 
romance introduced him, because no writer had a 

keener, quicker sense of atmosphere than he. The comedies 

and tragedies, of which the scene is laid in Southern Europe, 

in Italy or Greece or Egypt, are all instinct with the hot 

passion, the gaiety, the lightness of heart, the quick jest, the 

crafty intrigue, which breathe the warm air, the brilliant 

sunshine, the deep shadows, the long days of southern skies. 

The great series of the English history plays, with the 

bourgeois supplement of The Merry Wives, is, like the dramas 

of British legend, Macbeth and King Lear and Cymheline, 

mainly confined to English or British scenery. Apart from 

them, only one Shakespearian play carries the reader to a 

northern clime, or touches northern history. The rest take 

him to the south and introduce him to southern lands. The 

one northern play is Hamlet. The introspective melancholy 



316 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

that infects not the hero only, but his uncle, and to a 
smaller extent his friend Horatio and his mother — a melan- 
choly which is almost peculiar to them in the range of Shake- 
spearian humanity — belongs to the type of mind which is 
reared in a land of mists and long nights, of leaden skies 
and cloud-darkened days. Such are the distinguishing 
features of the northern Danish climate. Shakespeare's 
historic sense would never have allowed him to give Hamlet a 
local habitation in Naples or Messina, any more than it would 
have suffered him to represent Juliet or Othello as natives 
of Copenhagen or London. 

Another point is worth remarking. Shakespeare took a 
very wide view of human history, and few of the conditions 

that moulded human character escaped his notice. 
Width of , , 

historic His historic insight taught him that civilisation 

outlook. 

progressed in various parts of the world at various 

rates. He could interpret human feeling and aspirations at 
any stage of development in the scale of civilisation. Under 
the spur of speculation, which was offered by the discovery of 
America, barbarism interested him hardly less than civilisa- 
tion. Caliban is one of his greatest conceptions. In Caliban 
he depicts an imaginary portrait conceived with the utmost 
vigour and vividness of the aboriginal savage of the new 
world, of which he had heard from travellers or read in 
books of travel. Caliban hovers on the lowest limits of civili- 
sation. His portrait is an attempt to depict human nature 
when just on the verge of the evolution of moral sentiment 
and intellectual culture. 

Shakespeare was no less attracted by the opposite extreme 
in the scale of civilisation. He loved to observe civilisation 
that was over-ripe, that had overleaped itself, and was 
descending on the other side to effeteness and ruin. This 
type Shakespeare slightly sketched at the outset in his por- 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 317 

trait of the Spanish Armado in Love's Labour's Lost, but 
the painting of it only engaged his full strength, when he 
turned in later life to Egypt. Queen Cleopatra, the ' ser- 
pent of old Nile/ who by her time-honoured magic brings 
' experience, manhood, honour,' to dotage, is Shakespeare's 
supreme contribution to the study of civilised humanity's 
decline and fall. 



But it was the thought and emotion that animated the 
living stage of his own epoch which mainly en- gh a ke- 
gaged Shakespeare's pencil. He cared not whether delation to 
his themes and scenes belonged to England or Ws era - 
foreign countries. The sentiments and aspirations which filled 
the air of his era were part of his being and to them he 
gave the crowning expression. 

Elizabethan literature, which was the noblest manifesta- 
tion in England of the Renaissance, reached its apotheosis 

in Shakespeare. It had absorbed all the suste- 

Elizabethan 

nance of the new movement — the enthusiasm for literature 

and the 

the Greek and Latin classics, the passion for Renais- 

extending the limits of human knowledge, the 
resolve to make the best and not the worst of life upon earth, 
the ambition to cultivate the idea of beauty, the conviction 
that man's reason was given him by God to use without 
restraint. All these new sentiments went to the formation 
of Shakespeare's work, and found there perfect definition. 
The watchword of the mighty movement was sounded in his 
familiar lines: 

'Sure, He that made us with such large discourse, 
Looking before and after, gave us not 
The capability and god-like reason, 
To fust in us unused.' 



318 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

Upon the new faith of the Renaissance in the perfecti- 
bility of man, intellectually, morally, and physically, Shake- 
speare pronounced the final word in his deathless phrases: 
' What a piece of work is man ! How noble in reason ! how 
infinite in faculties ! in form and moving, how express and 
admirable ! in action, how like an angel ! In apprehension, 
how like a god ! ' Renaissance authors of France, Italy, and 
Spain expressed themselves to like intent. But probably in 
these words of Shakespeare is enshrined with best effect the 
true significance of the new enlightenment. 

Shakespeare's lot was cast by the silent forces of the 
universe, in the full current of this movement of the Renais- 
sance which was in his lifetime still active in every 
Shake- J 

speare's country of Western Europe. He was the contem- 

foreign 

contem- porary of Tasso, Ariosto's successor on the throne 

poraries. _ T _. _ _ . . 

or Italian Renaissance poetry and its last occu- 
pant. Ronsard and the poets of the French Renaissance 
flourished in his youth. Montaigne, the glory of the French 
Renaissance, whose thought on man's potentialities ran very 
parallel with Shakespeare's, was very little his senior. 
Cervantes, the most illustrious figure in the literature of the 
Spanish Renaissance, was his senior by only seventeen years, 
and died only ten days before him. All these men and their 
countless coadjutors and disciples were subject to many of 
the same influences as Shakespeare was. The results of their 
efforts often bear one to another not merely a general resem- 
blance, but a specific likeness, which amazes the investigator. 
How many poets and dramatists of sixteenth-century Italy, 
France and Spain, applied their energies to developing the 
identical plots, and the identical traditions of history as 
Shakespeare? Almost all countries of Western Europe were 
producing at the same period, under the same incitement of 
the revival of learning, and the renewal of intellectual energy, 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE 319 

tragedies of Julius Caesar, of Antony and Cleopatra, of 
Romeo and Juliet, and of Timon of Athens. All countries of 
Western Europe were producing sonnets and lyrics of identi- 
cal pattern with unprecedented fertility; all were producing 
prose histories and prose essays of the like type; all were 
surveying the same problems of science and philosophy, and 
offering much the same solutions. 

The direct interchange, the direct borrowings are not the 
salient features of the situation. Less material influences 

than translation or plagiarism were at work; m 

r & Thediffu- 

allowance must be made for the community of sion of the 

spirit of the 
feeling among all literary artificers of the day, Renais- 

for the looking backwards to classical literature, 

for the great common stock of philosophical sentiments and 

ideas to which at that epoch authors of all countries under 

the sway of the movement of the Renaissance had access 

independently. 

National and individual idiosyncrasies deeply coloured the 
varied literatures in which the spirit of the Renaissance was 
embodied. But that unique spirit is visible amid all the 
manifestations of national and individual genius and tempera- 
ment. 

When we endeavour to define the foreign influences at 
work on Shakespeare's achievement, we should beware of 
assigning to the specific influence of any indi- Misappre- 
vidual foreign writers those characteristics which beTuarded 
were really the property of the whole epoch, which a 8 ainst - 
belonged to the stores of thought independently at the dis- 
posal of every rational being who was capable at the period 
of assimilating them. Much has been made of the 
parallelisms of sentiment between Shakespeare and his 
French contemporary Montaigne, the most enlightened repre- 
sentative of the spirit of the Renaissance in France. Such 



320 GREAT ENGLISHMEN 

parallelisms stand apart from that literal borrowing by 
Shakespeare of part of a speech in The Tempest from 
Montaigne's essay on ' cannibals.' The main resemblances in 
sentiment concern the two men's attitude to far reaching 
questions of philosophy. But there is little justice in repre- 
senting the one as a borrower from the other. Both gave 
voice in the same key to that demand of the humanists of the 
Renaissance for the freest possible employment of man's 
reasoning faculty. Shakespeare and Montaigne were only 
two of many who were each, for the most part independently, 
interpreting in the light of his individual genius, and under 
the sway of the temperament of his nation, the highest prin- 
ciples of enlightenment and progress, of which the spirit of 
the time was parent. 

Direct foreign influences are obvious in Shakespeare; they 
are abundant and varied; they compel investigation. But no 
study of them can throw true and trustworthy light on any 
corner of Shakespeare's work, unless we associate with our 
study a full recognition, not merely of the personal pre- 
eminence of Shakespeare's genius and intuition, but also of 
the diffusion through Western Europe of the spirit of the 
Renaissance. That was the broad basis on which the 
foundations of Shakespeare's mighty and unique achievement 
were laid. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abbott, The Rev. E. A., his Life and 
Works of Bacon, 214; his edition of 
the Essays, 214. 

Achilles, 179. 

;Eneas, 179. 

JSschylus, Persae, 293. 

Africa, 9. 

Agamemnon, 301. 

Alcibiades,301. 

Alexander, Sir William, Earl of Stir- 
ling, 101. 

Alleyn, Edward, actor, 273. 

Amadis of Gaul, 99. 

Amazon, river, 205. 

America, 119, 255. 

Antwerp, 27, 28. 

Arber, Edward, his edition of Bacon's 
Essays, 214. 

Arcadia, by Sanazzaros, 98. 

— — by Sidney. See sub Sidney, Sir 
Philip, Works. 

Arden, Mary, 257. 

'Areopagus,' the club, 86, 166. 

Ariosto, 179, 196, 305, 318. 

Aristides, More compared with, 58. 

Aristotle, 92, 199, 246. 

Artaxerxes, 146. 

Artegal, Sir, 174, 199. 

Arthur, Prince, 201. 

Arundel, Thomas Howard, 14th Earl 
of, 237 and n. 

Ascham, Roger, 159. 

Assyria, 146. 

Aubrey, John, early biographer of 
Shakespeare, 229, 237 n., 244, 296. 

Audley, Sir Thomas, More's suc- 
cessor in the Chancellorship, 44 n. 



gustine, St., his 'City of God,' 22. 
Austria, dramatic performances in, 

297. 
Avon, river, 280. 

Babylon, 146. 

Bacon, Francis, 214-255; Bibliog- 
raphy, 214; second in greatness 
to Shakespeare, 215; Bacon and 
Shakespeare distinct, 215; his life 
and work, 216; his parentage, 216; 
his mother, 216; his advantage of 
birth, 217; birth, 217; at Trinity 
College, Cambridge, 217; returns to 
London to study law, 217; his pre- 
cocity, 217; his view of his profes- 
sion, 218; his ideals, 218; his materi- 
alism, 219; enters Parliament, 219; 
his attitude to politics, 220; his 
scheme of life, 220; influence of 
Macchiavelli, 221 ; his precepts, 221 ; 
relations with the Earl of Essex, 222; 
fails to obtain post of Attorney- 
General, 222; compensated by 
Essex, 222; disappointments, 223; 
his advice to Essex on Ireland, 223; 
his prosecution of Essex, 224; his 
perfidy, 224-5; seeks favour of 
James i., 225; advises James i., 
226; recommends union of England 
and Scotland, 226; literary occupa- 
tions, 227; Essays 1597, 228; Ad- 
vancement of Learning 1603, 228; 
marriage, 229; at Gorhambury, 
229; Solicitor-General 1607, 230; 
Attorney-General 1613, 230; his 
political fickleness, 230; seeks the 
333 



324 



GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



favour of the Duke of Bucking- 
ham, 231; Lord Keeper, 231; raised 
to peerage as Baron Verulam, 231; 
Lord High Chancellor, 232; Vis- 
count St. Alban, 232; his judicial 
work, 232; the Novum Organum, 
233; unpopularity with Parliament, 
233; charged with corruption, 234; 
his collapse, 234; confession, 235; 
dismissal from post of Lord Chan- 
cellor, 235; his punishment and re- 
tirement to St. Albans, 235; literary 
and scientific occupations, 235; 
writes history of Henry vn., 235; 
his Natural History, 236; his De 
Augmentis Scientiarum, 236; his 
hope of restitution, 236; his death at 
Highgate, 236; his experiments in 
refrigeration, 237 and n.; his burial 
and monument, 237; his character, 
238; his neglect of morals, 239; his 
want of savoir faire, 239; his true 
greatness, 240; his literary versa- 
tility, 240; his reverence for Latin, 
240; his contempt for English, 241; 
the style of his Essays, 241; his 
views in the Essays, 241; his pithy 
terseness, 242; his majestic style, 
242; Shelley's criticism, 243; his 
verse, 243; philosophic works, Ad- 
vancement of Learning and Novum 
Organum, 245; his attitude to 
science, 245 ; opposition to Aristotle, 
246; on induction, 246; his doctrine 
of idols, 247; the dry light of reason, 
248; limitless possibilities of man's 
knowledge, 249; his work frag- 
mentary, 249; ignorance of contem- 
porary science, 249; his own dis- 
coveries, 250; his place in the history 
of science, 250; his New Atlantis, 
251; his final message, 255; cf. also 
1, 3, 6, 15, 61 (views on colonisa- 
tion), 157, 287. 
Bacon, Francis, Works: Advance- 



ment of Learning, 221, 228, 236, 
243, 245 (De Augmentis Scienti- 
arum, 236, 245); Certaine Psalmes, 
244; Essays, 227, 241, 242; Henry 
VII., Reign of, 235; Historia Na- 
turalis et Experimentalis ad Con- 
dendam PhUosophiam, 236; Medi- 
tationes Sacrae, 1; New Atlantis, 
251; its objects, 251; the story, 252; 
the imaginary college of science and 
its work, 253; the Fellows, 254; its 
aspirations, 255; prospect of realis- 
ing the ideal, 255; Novum Organ- 
um, 228, 233, 245; Partis Secundce 
Delineatio, 247 n.; Valerius Ter- 
minus, 247 n. 

Bacon, Sir Nicholas, father of Francis 
Bacon, 216. 

Baif, Jean Antoine de, 308. 

Bandello, 305. 

Barton, Elizabeth (the Maid of Kent), 
denounces Henry vm.'s divorce, 
48; relations with More, 49. 

Basse, William, elegy to Shakespeare, 
279. 

Beaumont, Francis, 194, 279. 

Sir John, 245 n. 

Beling or Bellings, Richard, 102. 

Bellay, Joachim du, 79, 161, 184, 196, 
309; his Olive, 309 n. 

Belleforest, his Histoires Tragiques, 
295. 

Bembo, Cardinal Pietro, 278 n. 

Ben Salem, 252. 

Bible, The, its literary influence, 13; 
translations, 13, 14. 

Bion, 167. 

Blackfriars, 275. 

Blackwater, Battle of, 191. 

Boccaccio, 304. 

Boleyn, Anne, 40, 48; her triumph, 50. 

Boyle, James, 183. 

Elizabeth, 184. 

Richard (Earl of Cork), 183. 

Brazil, 30. 



INDEX 



325 



Britomart, 199. 

Bruges, 27. 

Bruno Giordano; visit to England, 88. 

Brussels, 27. 

Brutus, 315. 

Bryskett, Lodowick, 174, 184 n. 

Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke 

of, 231. 
Bucklersbury, More's house in, 26. 
Budleigh Salterton, 124. 
Bullen, A. H., his edition of Campion's 

Poems, 244 n. 
Bulmar, Master, 139 n. 
Bunyan, John, 202, 213. 
Burbage, Richard, actor, 266; his 

presentation of Richard III., 266. 
Burckhardt's Civilisation of the Period 

of the Renaissance in Italy, 1. 
Burghley, William Cecil, Lord, 69, 84, 

204, 217, 219. 
Burns, Robert, 213, 289. 
Byron, Lord, 213. 

Cabot, John, 119. 

Caesar, 315. 

Caliban, 316. 

Calidore,Sir,199. 

Cambell, 199. 

Cambridge Modern History, 1. 

Camden, William, Annales quoted, 

131. 
Campbell, Thomas, 213. 
Campion, Thomas, his Poems, 244 n. 
Canterbury Hall, Oxford, 20. 
Carolina, North, 128. 
Casimir, Prince John, 104. 
Catherine, Queen of Aragon, wife of 

Henry viii., 40; question of divorce, 

40-42, 48; divorced, 51. 
Cato, More compared with, 58. 
Caxton, William, introduced printing 

into England, 18, 19. 
Cecil, Sir Robert, 142. 
Cervantes, 288, 318. 
Chapman, George, 308. 



Charles i., 229, 236. 

Charles v. of Spain, 40; view of More's 
death, 58. 

Chartley Castle, 77. 

Chaucer, 94, 171, 193, 209, 279. 

Chelsea, More's house at, 26; visited 
by Henry vm.,38. 

Childe Harold, 213. 

Christ Church, Oxford, 20, 67. 

Church, Dean, his Life of Spenser, 
155. 

Cicero, 196, 292. 

Cinthio, Giraldi, his Hecatommithi, 
295, 304, 305. 

Cleopatra, 315, 317. 

Colet, John, 22. 

Coligny, 129. 

Colin, 168. 

College of Arms, 274 n. 

Collier, J. P., joint-editor of Shake- 
speare's Library, 285. 

Collins, Mr. Churton, his edition of 
Utopia, 17; his Shakespearean Stud- 
ies, 285. 

Colte, Jane, 26. 

Columbus, 10, 118. 

Comines, Philippe de, 97. 

Condel, Henry, 281. 

Cook, Prof. A. S., his edition of Sid- 
ney's Apologie for Poetrie, 63; of 
Shelley's Defence of Poetry, 243 n. 

Copernicus, 10; his system, 250. 

Cork, 126. 

Cotter's Saturday Night, 213. 

Cowley, Abraham, 212. 

Cowper, William, 114. 

Cranmer, Thomas, tests More's loy- 
alty, 51. 

Crashaw, Richard, 160. 

Crates, 245 n. 

Cromwell, Oliver, Carlyle's Letters 
and Speeches of, 153. 

Richard, 14, 153. 

Thomas, Henry viii.'s minister, 

prosecutes More, 49, 50, 54. 



326 



GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



Daniel, Samuel, 184, 209, 308. 
Dante, 78, 243 n.; Divina Commedia, 

196. 
Davies, Sir John, 244 n. 
Demetrius, 146. 
Denmark, dramatic performances in, 

297. 
Desportes, Philippe, 184. 
Devereux, Penelope, 77; married 

Lord Rich, 106. 
Diana Inamorada, Montemayor's, 98. 
Dictionary of National Biography, 1 . 
Dimoke, Master, 140. 
Discovery of Guiana, 116, 139, 140. 
Donne, John, 245 n. 
Don Quixote, 99. 
Dorset, Anne Clifford, Countess of, 

194. 
Drake, Sir Francis, 123, 129. 
Drama, Sidney's attitude to the, 89. 
Drayton, Michael, 103, 121, 172, 194. 
Dryden, John, 213. 
Duessa, 187, 203. 
Dudley, Robert. See Leicester. 
Dalwich, 274. 

Dumas, Alexandre, the elder, 286. 
Dyer, Sir Edward, 86. 

Eastward Ho!, 122. 

Edward vi., 65. 

Edwards, Edward, his Life of Ralegh, 
116. 

Egidius. See sub Giles. 

Egypt, 146. 

Elissa, 199. 

Elizabeth, Queen, 66, 156, 158, 201. 

Elizabethan Sonnets, in the English 
Garner, 63, 285. 

El Dorado, 137. 

England, sixteenth century, 1-16 pas- 
sim; its transitional aspect, 7; the 
ethical paradox of the era, 14; mix- 
ture of good and evil, 14; major 
paradox of More, Bacon, and 
Ralegh, 15; minor paradox of Sid- 



ney, Spenser, and Shakespeare, 15; 

Shakespeare's eulogies of, 287 (see 

also sub Renaissance). 
Epaminondas, 146. 
Erasmus, Epistolae quoted, 17, 18, 23- 

25; his reputation in Europe, 23; 

his character, 24; his religious 

moderation, 24; friendship with 

More, 25; letter from More, 43; 

advice to More on theology, 48; 

account of More at Chelsea, 59. 
Essex, Countess of, married to Earl of 

Leicester, 95. 
Robert Devereux, 2d Earl of, 

77, 142, 187, 192, 222 seq. 

Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of, 

^ 77, 84. 

Etienne or Stephens, Henri, 75. 

Euripides, Andromache, 293. 

Europe, Western, 8-9 seq. 

Evans, Sir Hugh, quotes Latin, 295. 

Eve of St. Agnes, 213. 

Falstaff, 271, 291. 

Farmer, Dr., his Essay on Shake- 
speare's Learning, 294. 

Farnaby, Thomas, his Florilegium 
Epigrammaticum Groecorum, 245 n. 

Faustus, Marlowe's, 4. 

Fayal, 147. 

Ferdinand of Spain, 118. 

(in Shakespeare's Tempest), 314. 

Fisher, John, Bishop of Rochester, 
imprisoned, 52; executed, 55. 

Flanders, supposed visit of Shake- 
speare to, 299. 

Flemings, 27. 

Fletcher, Phineas, 192; his Purple 
Island, 212. 

Florida, 128. 

Fox-Bourne, Mr. H. R., his Life of 
Sidney, 63. 

France, Renaissance in, 3; English 
actors in, 297. 

Frankfort, Sidney at, 72. 



INDEX 



327 



Frio, Cape, 30. 

Friswell, J. H., his abridged edition of 

Arcadia, 63. 
Froben of Basle, published Utopia, 33. 
Froude, J. A., his summary of Erasmi 

Epistolae, 17. 
Fuller, Thomas, 127. 
Furnivall, F. J., Fresh Allusions to 

Shakspere, 256. 

Galileo, 88, 250, 288. 

Gama, Vasco da, 10. 

Germany, the Renaissance in, 3, 33; 

English actors in, 297. 
Gerusalemme Liberata, Tasso's, 196. 
Gifford, Captain, 140. 
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 106, 123; 

death, 127. 
Gilbert, Otho, 123. 
Gilbert, William, his researches in 

magnetism, 249. 
Giles, Peter, or Egidius, 28, 29. 
Giovanni, Ser Fiorentino, his II 

Pecorone, 295, 305. 
Giulio, Romano, 307. 
Goethe, 285. 
Golding, Arthur, translator of Ovid, 

296. 
Goodwin, Hugh, 140. 
Gorhambury, near St. Albans, 229. 
Gosson, Stephen, his School of Abuse, 

91. 
Gray, Thomas, poet, 160, 196. 
Greece, literature of, 8-9; mythology 

and history of, in Shakespeare, 301 . 
Greene, Robert, 312. 
Greenwich Palace, 267. 
Grenville, Sir Richard, 129. 
Greville, Fulke, Lord Brooke, 67-68, 

82, 88; his Life of Sidney, 63. 
Grey, Lord Arthur, of Wilton, 174, 

204. 
Grey, Lady Jane, 65. 
Grimald, Nicolas, 245. 
Grocyn, William, 22. 



Grosart, Dr., his edition of Spenser, 

155. 
Guiana, 137. 
Guicciardini, 97. 
Guyon, Sir, 199. 

Hales, Prof. J. W., his memoir of 
Spenser, 155. 

Hall, Elizabeth, Shakespeare's grand- 
daughter, 276. 

John, 276. 

Mrs. Susanna, Shakespeare's 

eldest daughter, 276. 

William, 276. 

Halliwell-Phillipps, J. O., his Outlines 
of the Life of Shakespeare, 256. 

Hamlet, 315. 

Hannah, J., D.C.L., his Poems of 
Ralegh, etc., 116. 

Harington, Sir John, 74; translation of 
Ariosto, 305. 

Harrington, Henry, 245 n. 

Harvey, Gabriel, his view of Arcadia, 
97; cf. 161, 163, 169. 

William, discovered circulation 

of the blood, 249. 

Hazlitt, W. C, joint-editor of Shake- 
speare's Library, 285. 

Heidelberg, Sidney at, 82. 

Heliodorus, 98. 

Heming, John, 281. 

Henry v., 314. 

vil, his victory at Bosworth 

Field, 18. 

viii., 18; his attitude to the new 

Learning, 38; to the Reformation, 
40; his wish for divorce, 40; his 
supreme power, 41; his attitude to 
Luther and the Pope, 42; his power 
over Parliament, 42; opposed by 
More, 42; denounced by the Maid of 
Kent, 48; Act of Succession, 52; 
Supreme Head of the Church, 54; 
cf. 65. 

Prince of Wales, 148. 



328 



GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



Herbert, George, 244. 

Herodotus, 166. 

Heron, Giles, More's son-in-law, 45. 

History of the World. See sub Ralegh. 

Hobbes, Thomas, 237 n. 

Holbein, Hans, illustrates More's 

Utopia, 33; friendship with More, 

59. 
Holinshed's Chronicles, 272. 
Holland, English actors in, 297. 
Holofernes, quotes Latin from Lily, 

295. 
Homer, 5, 179, 195, 196; Iliad and 

Odyssey, 195. 
Horace, 292. 
Horatio, 316. 

Howard, Lord, of Effingham, 142. 
Hugo, Victor, 286. 
Huguenots, the, 125. 
Hutton, Rev. W. H., B.D., More's 

biography, 17. 
Hyperion, Shakespeare's scansion of, 

296. 
Hythlodaye, Raphael, 29. 

Immerito, Edmund Spenser, 169. 

Ingenioso, 193. 

Ireland, Sidney's views on, 84. 

Isabella of Spain, 118. 

Ingleby, C. M., 256. 

Italy, Renaissance in, 3. 

towns of:— Florence, 18, 303; 

supposed visit of Shakespeare to, 
299. Mantua, 299-304. Milan, 
299-304. Padua, Pisa, Venice, 
299-304. Verona, 299-304; fre- 
quently mentioned in Shakespeare, 
303. 

James i., 143, 156, 187. 
Jamyn, Amadis, 309. 
Java, 123. 
Jezebel, 146. 
Johnson, Dr., 207. 



Jonson, Ben, his praise of Shake- 
speare, 269; compared with Shake- 
speare, 270; his Catiline's Con- 
spiracy, 270; elegy on Shakespeare, 
280; Poetaster, 285; cf. 136, 194, 258, 
262, 296. 

Juliet, 316. 

Kalendrier des Bergers, 168. 
Keats, John, 115, 213, 289, 296. 
Kemp, William, comic actor, 266; his 

presentation of Peter in Romeo and 

Juliet, 266. 
Kenilworth, 76. 

Kenilworth, Sir Walter Scott's, 127 n. 
Kepler, John, 249. 
Kilcolman, 176. 
Kirke, Edward, 161, 169. 

Lamb, Charles, 212. 

Languet, Hubert, 72. 

Laura, mistress of Petrarch, 79. 

Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl of, 

67, 163, 297. 
Leonora, Tasso's three benefactresses 

of that name, 184 n. 
Lily, William, 22, 292, 295. 
Linacre, Thomas, 22. 
Lismore, 126. 
Livy, 97. 

Lodge, Thomas, 308. 
Louvain, 33. 
Lowell, James Russell, his criticism of 

Spenser, 155. 
Lucian, 31. 
Ludlow Castle, 67. 
Luther, Martin, 18; his revolution, 35, 

41; attacked by More, 48. 

Macaulay, his criticism of the Faerie 

Queene, 200. 
Macchiavelli, 71, 221. 
Macedonia, 146. 
Mackail, J. W., his Greek Anthology, 

245 n. 



INDEX 



329 



Markham, Gervase, 102. 

Marlowe, Christopher, 4, 135, 258. 

Marot, Clement, 161, 168, 184. 

Mantuanus, Baptista, 168, 170, 292. 

Mary, Queen of England, 66, 158. 

Queen of Scots, 187, 204. 

Massinger, Philip, 262. 

Mathews, Sir Tobie, 237 n. 

Meautys, Sir Thomas, 238. 

Medina, 199. 

Merchant Taylors' School, 159, 258. 

' Mermaid ' Tavern, the, 136. 

Michael Angelo, 288, 307. 

Milton, John, 101, 196, 213, 214, 243 
n., 280, 289; Paradise Lost and 
Paradise Regained, 196. 

Minturno, the influence of his 'De 
Poeta' on Sidney, 92. 

Mommsen, Theodor, 315. 

Montaigne, Miguel de, 310, 318, 319, 
320. 

Montaigne and Shakespeare, by Mr. J. 
M. Robertson, 285. 

Montemayor, George de, his Diana 
Inamorada, 98. 

More, Cresacre, his Life of Sir Thomas 
More, 17. 

Sir John, father of Sir Thomas 

More, as judge, 40. 

Sir Thomas, his birth, 17; his 

contemporaries, 18; his father, 19; 
at St. Anthony's School, 20; in the 
service of Cardinal Morton, 20; his 
wit, 20; enters Canterbury Hall, 
Oxford, 20; the influence of Oxford, 
21; studies Latin and Greek, 21; 
studies law in London, 22; becomes 
acquainted with Colet, Linacre, 
Grocyn, Lyly, 22; reads works of 
Pico della Mirandola and of the 
humanists of Italy, 22; first meets 
Erasmus, 23-25; enters Parliament 
and denounces Henry vn.'s taxa- 
tion of the people, 25 ; marries Jane 
Colte, 25; acquires house in Buck- 



lersbury, 26; marries again, 26; 
settles at Chelsea, 26; Under- 
Sheriff of London, 27; represents 
IiOndon's commercial interests with 
the Flemings, 27 ; first visits the Con- 
tinent, 27; visits Bruges, Brussels, 
and Antwerp, 27; meets Peter Giles 
(Egidius) at Antwerp, whence he 
derives inspiration for his Utopia, 
28; Utopia published (1516), 28; 
contrast between More's theory and 
practice, 34; his attitude to Lutheran 
and Papal principles, 35, 36; be- 
comes a Master of Requests or Ex- 
aminer of Petitions, 36; resides at 
Court, 36; his attitude to politics, 
37; his loyalty, 38; his popularity 
with the King, 38; knighted 1521, 
39; sub-Treasurer of the King's 
household, 39; Speaker of the 
House of Commons, 39; Chancellor 
of the Duchy of Lancaster 1525, 39; 
his humility, 39; Lord Chancellor 
1529, 39; More and his father as 
judges, 40; his opposition to the 
King's divorce, 41; resigned the 
Chancellorship 1532, 43; writes to 
Erasmus on the subject, 43; his 
economy, 44; his Chelsea tomb, 45; 
his work as Chancellor, 45; his im- 
partiality, 45; accessibility, 46; his 
judicial conduct censured, 46; his 
religious bias, 46; in retirement, 47; 
attacks Tyndale, 47; More and the 
Maid of Kent, 48, 49; refuses to sub- 
scribe to the oath, 51; abjuring the 
Pope, 51; committed to the Tower, 
52; his resignation to his fate, 53; 
his correspondence, 54; refuses to 
accept the King's supremacy of the 
Church, 54; his trial 1535, 55; sen- 
tenced to death, 55; his farewell to 
his daughter, 55; executed on Tower 
Hill, 56; his grim jest, 56; burial, 
57; his character and mode of life, 



330 



GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



58; his love of art, 59; his friend- 
ship with Holbein, 59; his Latin 
writing, 59; his English poetry, 59; 
his English prose, 60; his literary 
repute abroad, 61; the inconsistency 
of his theory and practice, 62; see 
also 3, 6, 12, 15, 63, 64, 119, 158, 
159, 216. 
More, Sir Thomas, Works: 

Utopia, 28 seq.; contents of, 28 seq.; 
the first book and the ideal of the 
New World, 29; the second book, 
31 ; care of the mind, 31 ; contempt 
for precious metals, 31; Utopian 
philosophy, 32; religion, 32; writ- 
ten in Latin, 33; a dream of fancy 
in contrast to More's practice, 33, 
34; English translation of, 59; cf. 
3, 15, 83, 120, 252. 
History of Richard III., 60; his Life 
of Pico, 60; his controversial theol- 
ogy, 60; devotional treatises, 61. 
Mornay, Philippe de, 89. 
Morton, John, Cardinal, Archbishop 
of Canterbury, takes More into his 
service, 20; probable author of His- 
tory of Richard III., 60. 
Mulcaster, Richard, 159. 
Munster, 126, 127. 

Napier, John, inventor of logarithms, 

249. 
Nestor, Shakespeare likened to, 277, 

301. 
Newfoundland, 127-128. 
New Place, 273. 
Norfolk, Thomas Howard, third 

Duke of, 50. 
Norreys, Sir Thomas, 192. 
Northumberland, John Dudley, Duke 

of, 65. 
Duchess of, Sidney's godmother, 

66. 

Orinoco, river, 137. 

Orlando Fwrioso, 179, 196, 305. 



Othello, 316. 

Ovid, 173, 292; his Metamorphoses, 

295; quoted by Shakespeare, 302. 
Oxford, More at, 20, 21; Sidney at, 

68; and the Renaissance, 21. 
Edward de Vere, Earl of, 70; 

his quarrel with Sidney, 95. 

Pacific Sea, 252. 

Palmer, Master, 140. 

Pamela, 100; Richardson's, 114. 

Panama, 123. 

Paris, 33; Sidney in, 71. 

Pater, Walter, The Renaissance, 1. 

Pecorone, II, 305. 

Pembroke, Countess of, 96, 101. 

Penshurst, Sidney's birthplace, 65. 

Perissa, 199. 

Persia, 146. 

Peru, 205, 252. 

Petrarch, 73, 78, 161, 184, 196, 306. 

Philip II. of Spain, 66. 

Phillipps, Augustine, actor, 274 n. 

Sir William, 274 n. 

Pico della Mirandola, 22-23: More's 

Life of, 60. 
Pierces Supererogation, etc., 97 n., 

114 n. 
Pilgrimage to Parnassus, 193. 
Pilgrim's Progress, 202. 
Pindar, 92. 

Plato, 22, 29, 92, 159, 198, 243 n., 247. 
Plautus, 292, 296, 303. 
Pleiade, La, 86, 308. 
Plinius, Caius, the elder, 237 n. 
Plutarch, 315; North's translation of 

Lives, 272, 291, 312. 
Poland, Sidney candidate for the 

throne of, 75. 
Pollard, A. W., editor of Astrophel and 

Stella, 63. 
Ponsonby, William, 178, 182. 
Pope, Thomas, actor, 274 n. 
Posidippus, 245. 
Prague, Sidney at, 82. 



INDEX 



331 



Protestantism and the Renaissance, 

12. 
Ptolemy, 250. 

Puritanism and the drama, 90. 
Purple Island, Fletcher's, 192, 212. 
Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, 

245. 
Pyrrhus, 146. 

Quiney, Judith, Shakespeare's 
youngest daughter, 276. 

Rabelais, 310. 

Ralegh, Sir Walter, Bibliography, 116; 
his versatility, 123; his home, 123; 
at Oxford, 124; studies law in Lon- 
don, 124; in France, 125; in the 
Netherlands, 125; goes to West 
Indies, 125; in Ireland, 126; plans 
expedition to North America, 127; 
story of his cloak, 127; detained by 
Queen Elizabeth, 128; his relations 
with Virginia, 128-130; planted the 
potato in Ireland, 130; introduces 
tobacco-smoking, 130; serves against 
Spanish Armada, 133; his desire of 
gain, 133; his intellectual interests, 
134; friendship with Spenser, 134; 
his poetry, 135; meetings at the 
'Mermaid,' 136; goes to Guiana, 
137; hardships, 318; his Discovery 
of Guiana, 139, 140; returns home, 
141; joins in expeditions to Cadiz 
and the Azores, 141; his mar- 
riage, 141; his unpopularity at 
Court, 142; charged with treason, 
143; sentenced to death and res- 
pited, 144; imprisoned in Tower, 
144; his scientific curiosity, 145; 
his History of the World, 145; cen- 
sure of Henry viii., 146; his criti- 
cism of current events, 147; his 
moral purpose, 147; hopes of free- 
dom, 148; released, 149; return to 
Guiana, 150; failure of the expedi- 



tion, 150; his disgrace and execu- 
tion, 150; his apostrophe on death, 
151; the contemporary estimate, 
152; his character, 152; his failure 
and success, 153; the true founder of 
Virginia, 153; cf. also 6-14, 15, 107, 
156, 177, 180, 182, 226, 258, 283. 
Ralegh, Sir Walter, Works: 
Discovery of Guiana, 116. 
History of the World, 15, 259, 283. 
Raphael, 278 n. 

Rawley, Dr. William, Bacon's chap- 
lain, 228 n., 229 n. 
Red Cross, Knight of the, 199. 
Reliquia Wottoniana?, 245 n. 
Renaissance, The, 1-15 passim; in 
Europe, 3; its unity, 3; its results in 
England, 3; the quest for knowl- 
edge, 4; width of outlook, 4; versa- 
tility, 5; the mental energy, 5; great 
Englishmen of the epoch, 6; its 
causes, 7; intellectual revelation, 8; 
discovery of ancient Greek litera- 
ture, 8; Italian influence, 9; the 
physical revelation, 9; maritime dis- 
coveries, 9; discovery of solar system, 
10; expansion of thought, 10; inven- 
tion of printing, 11; the Renais- 
sance and the Church of Rome, 11; 
the Protestant compromise, 12; liter- 
ary influence of the Bible, 13; the 
English products of the Renais- 
sance, 14-15; Shakespeare the 
climax, 16; in England, 17-18. 
Renaissance in Italy, by Symonds, 1. 
Renaissance, The, by Pater, 1. 
Return from, Parnassus, 155, 192. 
Reynolds, Samuel Harvey, his edition 

of Bacon's Essays, 214. 
Rich, Lady. See sub Devereux, 
Penelope. 

Lord, 106. 

Richard III., History of, 60. 
Rinaldo, 179. 
Roanoke, 128. 



332 



GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



Robertson, Mr. J. M., his Montaigne 
and Shakespeare, 285. 

Rome, the Church of, and the Renais- 
sance, 12. 

Romeo, 314. 

Ronsard, Pierre, 71, 79, 308, 318; 
Amours, 310 n. 

Roper, Margaret, 54, 55, 57. 

William, More's son-in-law, his 

Life of Sir Thomas More, 17; ac- 
count of More's death, 55. 

'Salomon's house,' 253. 

St. Bartholomew's Day, 72. 

St. Thome, 150. 

Sanazzaro, 98, 168. 

Scaliger, Julius Caesar, influence of his 
Poetice on Sidney, 92. 

Scott, Sir Walter, his Kenilworth, 
127 n. 

Scudamore, Sir, 203. 

Seebohm, Mr. Frederic, his Oxford 
Reformers, 17. 

Seneca, 58, 292. 

Sententiae Pueriles, 292, 295. 

Shakespeare, John, father of William, 
257; probably at Kenilworth, 76. 

Will[iam], volunteer, 297. 

William, Bibliography, 256; par- 
entage, birth, and baptism, 257; 
education, 257; compared with that 
of his contemporaries, 258; his self- 
training, 258; his youth, 259; his 
marriage, 259; visits London, 259; 
his genius, 260; association with 
London and the theatre, 260; a 
theatre call-boy, 261; the period of 
probation, 261; his use of law 
terms, 262; comparison with con- 
temporaries, 262; his early plays, 
Love's Labour' 's Lost and Romeo and 
Juliet, 265; has the Earl of South- 
ampton as patron, 265; as actor, 
266; acts before Queen Elizabeth at 
Greenwich Palace, 267; his gallant 



reference to the Queen in A Mid- 
summer Night's Dream, 268; wins 
James i.'s favour, 268; his plays per- 
formed at Whitehall, 268; the favour 
of the crowd, 269; praised by Ben 
Jonson, 269; his success, 269; com- 
pared with Ben Jonson, 270; univer- 
sality of appeal, 270; the progressive 
quality of his work, 271; his prac- 
tical handling of affairs, 271; his 
literary loans on Holinshed and 
Plutarch, 272; returns to Stratford, 
272; purchases New Place, 273; 
his income, similar to that of his 
actor contemporaries, 273; invests in 
real estate at Stratford, 273; his re- 
tirement from play-writing, 275; 
occasional visits to London, 275; 
purchases house in Blackf riars, 275 ; 
takes part in local affairs, 275; his 
death, 275; his will, 276; his burial, 
276; inscription on grave, 276; his 
monument, 277; his elegists — Basse, 
Jonson, Milton, 278-281; oral tra- 
dition, 281; his autograph, 282; ab- 
sence of documentary material re- 
lating to his life, 283; foreign influ- 
ences, 285 seq.; bibliography, 285; 
his universal repute, 286; in Ger- 
many, 286; in France, 286; opinions 
of Victor Hugo and the elder Dumas, 
286; his patriotism, 286; his assim- 
ilative power, 289; his learning, 290; 
the two views, 290; his instantaneous 
power of perception, 291; early in- 
struction in Latin, 292; apparent 
ignorance of Greek, 293; parallel- 
isms with the Greek tragedians acci- 
dental, 293; knowledge of French 
and Italian, 294; Latin and French 
quotations, 295; Lily and Ovid fre- 
quently used, 295 ; his lack of schol- 
arship, 296; no traveller abroad, 
297; his views of travel, 298; imag- 
inative affinity with Italy, 299; 



INDEX 



333 



geographical blunders, 299; internal 
evidences of foreign influence, 300; 
references to Greek mythology and 
history, 300-1 ; his Troilus and Cres- 
sida, 301; to Roman History, 301; 
his Lucrece, 301; Julius Caesar, 302; 
Antony and Cleopatra, 302; use of 
Italian history and literature, 303; 
use of the Italian novel, 304; means 
of access to the Italian novel, 304; 
Otliello and Merchant of Venice, 
305; his method of alteration, 306; 
influence of Petrarch, 306; knowl- 
edge of Italian art, 307; French 
influences, 308-9; influence of Rabe- 
lais and Montaigne, 310; alertness in 
acquiring foreign knowledge, 310; 
wide geographical outlook, 311; 
geographical errors, 312; influence 
of the foreign spirit, 313; his uni- 
versality, 314; historic sensibility, 
314; his fidelity to 'atmosphere,' 
315; width of historic outlook, 316; 
his relation to his era, 317; his faith 
in human perfection, 318; his for- 
eign contemporaries, 318; his re- 
semblances to Montaigne, 318; 
foreign influences, 320; cf. 1, 3, 6, 7, 
14, 15, 61, 114, 117, 156, 158, 164, 
194, 215. 
Shakespeare, William, Plays quoted: 
All's Well, 304; Antony and Cleo- 
patra, 302, 311, 312; Comedy of 
Errors, The, 267, 296, 303, 304, 311; 
Coriolanus, 302, 311; Cymbeline, 
271, 285, 304, 311, 315; Hamlet, 1, 
293, 312, 315; Henry V ., 295; 
Julius Ccssar, 270, 302, 311, 313, 
314; King Lear, 114; acted at Court, 
268; 271, 315; Love's Labour's Lost, 
85, 267; acted at Court, 268; 295, 
304, 312, 317; Lucrece, 301; Mac- 
beth, 315; Measure for Measure, 
304, 306, 312; Merchant of Venice, 
The, 305; Merry Wives of Windsor, 



The, acted at Court, 268; 295, 315; 
Midsummer Night's Dream, A, 76, 
268, 271, 311; Much Ado About 
Nothing, 303, 304, 311; Othello, 
271, 305, 306, 311, 314; Pericles, 
311; Romeo and Juliet, 303, 314; 
Sonnets, 293, 309; Taming of the 
Shrew, The, 300; Tempest, The, 
271, 295, 299, 310, 320; Timon of 
Athens, 311; Titus Andronicus, 311; 
Troilus and Cressida, 301, 311; 
Twelfth Night, 304, 305, 311; The 
Two Gentlemen of Verona, 299, 304; 
Winter's Tale, The, 307, 312. 

Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity, 
by M. Paul Stapfer, 285. 

Shakespearean Studies, by Mr. Chur- 
ton Collins, 285. 

Shakespeare's Library, edited by J. P. 
Collier and W. C. Hazlitt, 285. 

Plutarch, edited by Prof. Skeat, 

285. 

Shakspere's Centurie of Prayse, 256. 

Shelley, Defence of Poetry, 92, 243 and 
n.; his praise of Sidney, 115, 213. 

Shoreditch, theatre in, 266. 

Shrewsbury, school at, 67. 

Shylock, 291. 

Sidney, Sir Henry, father of Sir Philip 
Sidney, 65; Lord Deputy of Ireland, 
77. 

Sir Philip, Bibliography, 63; his 

ancestry, 63; his intellectual ambi- 
tions, 64; born at Penshurst, 65; 
baptism, 66; his uncle, the Earl of 
Leicester, 67 ; lives at Ludlow Cas- 
tle, 67; at Shrewsbury School, 67; 
meets Fulke Greville there, 67, 68; 
his seriousness, 68; at ChristChurch, 
Oxford, 68; gains Lord Burghley's 
favour, 69; his foreign travel, 70, 71 ; 
in Paris at time of the St. Bar- 
tholomew massacre, 72; at Frank- 
fort meets the printer Wechel and 
Languet, 72; at Vienna, 73; in 



334 



GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



Venice, 73; meets Tintoretto and 
Paolo Veronese, 73; his studious- 
ness, 73, 74; his Protestant zeal, 74; 
diplomatic employment in Vienna, 
74; meets Stephens at Heidelberg, 
75; returns home, 75; at Kenilworth 
1576, 76; visits Chartley Castle, 77; 
meets Penelope Devereux, 77; 
writes his Astrophel and Stella, 77; 
his political ambitions, 82; goes as 
foreign envoy to Heidelberg and 
Prague, 82; at Vienna, 83; visits 
Prince of Orange at Antwerp, 83; 
wrote a masque, 85; friendship 
with Spenser, 86; the Shepheards 
Calender dedicated to Sidney, 86; 
member of the 'Areopagus,' 86; 
intercourse with Bruno, 88; his in- 
terest in the drama, 89; godfather 
to Richard Tarleton, 90; his reply 
to Gosson's School of Abuse, the 
Apologie for Poetrie, 91 ; criticism of 
the Apologie, 91-95; quarrels with 
courtiers and with Queen Eliza- 
beth, 95; criticises Queen's plan of 
marrying the King of France, 96; 
in retirement writes Arcadia, 96; 
reconciled to the Queen, 103; 
steward to Bishop of Winchester, 
104; enters Parliament for Kent, 
104; knighted, 104; Joint-Master of 
the Ordnance, 105; marriage with 
Frances Walsingham, 105; resides 
at Barn Elms, 106; interest in the 
New World, 106; grant of American 
lands, 107; his hostility to Spain, 
108; goes to Low Countries, 109; 
Governor of Flushing, 109; attack 
on Zutphen, 110; account of his 
death at Arnheim, 111; buried in 
St. Paul's Cathedral, 112; national 
mourning, 112; his career, 112; 
literary work, 113; influence of his 
Arcadia, 114; the 'Marcellus' of 
England, 115; Shelley's praise, 115; 



cf. also 5, 6, 15, 121, 156, 166, 175, 
184. 

Sidney, Sir Philip, Works: 

Apologie for Poetrie, edited by Prof. 
A. S. Cook, 63; its freedom from 
pedantry, 92; its view of poetry, 
92; confusion between poetry and 
prose, 93; misunderstandings 
about English poetry, 94; its en- 
lightened conclusions, 94; cf. 166. 
Arcadia, edited by J. H. Friswell, 
63; foreign models, 97; criticism 
of Gabriel Harvey, 97; pastoral 
and chivalry mingled, 99; the 
story, 99-100; its complex in- 
trigue, 100; incoherence of plot, 
100; the introduction of verse, 
102; the verse and its metres, 
102; the prose style, 103. 
Astrophel and Stella, edited by A. 
W. Pollard, 63; its Petrarchan 
vein and Platonic idealism, 80; its 
metre, 81; its publication, 81; its 
influence, 81. 
Lady of the May, 85. 
Skeat, Prof., his Shakespeare's Plu- 
tarch, 285. 
Smith, Captain John, 131-133. 

Lucy Toulmin, 256. 

William, 274. 

Smitterfield, 257. 

Socrates, More compared with, 58; 

Shakespeare compared with, 277. 
Sophocles, his Plectra, 293. 
Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, 

Earl of, 164, 265. 
Southwark, 274. 
Spain, Renaissance in, 3. 
Sparrow, Francis, 140. 
Spedding, James, his Bacon's Life and 
Letters, 214; his edition of Bacon's 
Works, 214. 
Spenser, Edmund, Bibliography, 155; 
his career, 156; his views of poetry, 
156; his poetic zeal and worldly 



INDEX 



335 



struggles, 157; his birth, 158; birth- 
place, 158; compared with Shake- 
speare's career, 158; his youth, 159 
at Merchant Taylors' School, 159 
at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, 160 
his college friends, 160; relations 
with Gabriel Harvey, 161; translates 
poems by Du Bellay and Clement 
Marot, 161; his degree, 162; his 
love for Cambridge, 162; in Lanca- 
shire, 162; his love-affairs, 162; 
settlement in London, 163; in the 
service of the Earl of Leicester, 163; 
secretarial work, 164; visited Ire- 
land, France, Spain, Italy, Rome, 
164; meets Sir Philip Sidney, 165; 
attempts classical metres in poetry, 
165; his experiments, 166; writes 
The English Poet, 166; contem- 
plates Faerie Queene, 167; his Shep- 
heards Calender, 167; neglected by 
his patron, 172; writes Virgil's Gnat, 
172; secretary to the Lord Deputy of 
Ireland, 173; migrates to Ireland, 
173; early friends in Ireland, 174; 
meets Lodowick Bryskett, 174; 
continues Faerie Queene, 175; his 
Astrophel, 175; removes to the south 
of Ireland, 176; made clerk of the 
Council of Munster, 176; resides at 
Kilcolman, 176; quarrels with his 
neighbours, 176; meets Sir Walter 
Ralegh, 177; his eulogy of Ralegh, 
177; revisits London and publishes 
Faerie Queene (bks. i.-iii.), 178; 
granted a pension, 180; return to 
Ireland, 181; his despair of his 
fortunes, 181; his Colin Clouts come 
home againe, 182; hisRuines of Time, 
182; his Complaints, 182; Muiopot- 
mos, 182; his marriage, 183; his 
Amoretti, 184; his Epithalamion, 
185; continues his Faerie Queene 
(bks. iv.-vi.), 186; political difficul- 
ties, 187; visits Queen's palace at 



Greenwich, 187; guest of Earl of 
Essex, 187; his Prothalamion, 187; 
his tract, A View of the Present State 
of Ireland, 188; Sheriff of Cork, 190; 
his house at Kilcolman burnt by 
Irish rebels, 191; he flees to Cork, 
191; sent to London, 192; dies in 
poverty at Westminster, 192; buried 
in Westminster Abbey, 192; the 
Poets' Corner, 193; his tomb, 194; 
the inscription, 194; his greatness, 
195; his Faerie Queene, 195-213; his 
sensitiveness to beauty, 210; his 
influence, 212; variety of his excel- 
lences, 213; cf. 6, 15, 79, 86, 134, 
214, 258, 262, 263, 279, 283, 308. 
Spenser, Edmund, Works: 

Amoretti, 82; indebtedness to for- 
eign poets, 183-184. 
Astrophel, 175. 
Colin Clouts come home againe, 178, 

182. 
Complaints, 182. 
English Poet, The, 166. 
Epithalamion, 185; its lyrical pow- 
ers, 186. 
Faerie Queene, 167; books i.-iii. 
published, 178; its reception, 179; 
its advance on The Shepheards 
Calender, 179; indebtedness to 
earlier models, 179; its purpose, 
179; books iv.-vi., 186; its ampli- 
tude of scale, 195; its assimilative 
power, 196; its moral teaching, 
197; its indebtedness to Plato, 
198; the Knights of the Virtues, 
199; its affinity with chivalric 
romance, 200; Macaulay's charge 
of tediousness, 200; the Queen 
and Prince Arthur, 200; its want 
of homogeneity, 201; its allegorical 
intention, 202; comparison with 
Bunyan's allegory, 202; influence 
of the age, 203; his references to 
contemporaries,203-204 ; his refer- 



336 



GREAT ENGLISHMEN 



ences to contemporary ideals and 
prejudices, 205; the poetic style, 
206; the Spenserian stanza, 207; 
criticisms by Dr. Johnson and 
Horace Walpole, 207; the flow of 
the verse, 207; carelessness of 
rhyme, 208; the vocabulary, 209; 
the debt to Chaucer, 209; sensi- 
tiveness to beauty, 209; its influ- 
ence, 212; use of law terms, 263; 
cf. 283. 

Ireland, A View of the Present State 
of: its narrowness of temper, 188; 
his prejudice against the Irish, 
189; his appreciation of the good 
qualities of the Irish, 189; his 
admiration for the native poetry, 
189; the natural beauty of Ire- 
land, 190. 

Muiopotmos, 182. 

Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubberds 
Tale, 181. 

Prothalamion, 187. 

Ruines of Time, The, 166, 182. 

Sheplieards Calender, 166 seq.; its 
foreign models, 167; its eulogy of 
Chaucer, 168; inscribed anony- 
mously to Sir Philip Sidney, 169; 
Edward Kirke's criticism, 169; 
its topics, 170; its true value, 171; 
its metre and language, 171; its 
place in English poetry, 171; 
Drayton's criticism, 172; cf. 86, 
179, 283. 

Virgil's Gnat, 172. 
Stapfer, M. Paul, his Shakspeare and 

Classical Antiquity, 285. 
Stebbing, Mr. William, his Life of 

Ralegh, 116. 
Stephens, or Etienne, Henri, 75. 
Stratford-on-Avon, 257, 292. 
Stuart, Arabella, 144. 
Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of, 79; 

commended by Sidney, 94. 
Symonds, J. A., Renaissance in Italy, 1. 



Tacitus, 97. 

Tarleton, Richard, 90. 

Tasso, 73, 179, 184, 196, 310 n., 318. 

Tennyson, 57, 157, 289. 

Terence, 292. 

Thenot, 168. 

Theocritus, 98, 167, 170, 196. 

Theseus, 301. 

Thomson, James, 213. 

Tintoretto, 73. 

Tityrus, 168. 

Todd, Henry John, his edition of 
Spenser, 155. 

Tottel's Songes and Sonnettes, 245 n. 

Triamond, 199. 

Trinidad, 137. 

Troy, 301. 

Tyndale, William, attacked by More, 
47; his version of the New Testa- 
ment, 47, 48. 

Tyrone, Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of, 
191. 

Ulysses, 301. 

Underhill, Sir Thomas, 229. 
United States, 255. 
Utopia, see sub More, Sir Thomas, 
Works. 

Valerius Terminus, by Bacon, 247 n. 

Venezuela, 137. 

Venice, Sidney at, 73. 

Veronese, Paul, 73. 

Verulam House, 229. 

Verulamium, 232. 

Vespucci, Amerigo, 29. 

Vienna, Sidney at, 73, 83. 

Villiers, George, Duke of Bucking- 
ham, 148. 

Vinci, Leonardo da, 5, 6. 

Virgil, 98, 179, 195, 196, 214, 277; 
Eclogues, 168; Gnat, 172; rfZneid, 
195; referred to by Shakespeare, 
302. 

Virginia, 128, 205. 



INDEX 



337 



Walpole, Horace, 208. 

Walsingham, Frances, 105. 

Sir Francis, 71, 84, 105. 

Warwick, Ambrose Dudley, Earl of, 
105, 182. 

Waterford, 126. 

Watson, Thomas, 79. 

Weames, Mrs. A., 102 n. 

Webster, John, 262, 282. 

Wechel, Andrew, printer in Frank- 
fort, 72. 

Weever, John, 192 n. 

Westminster Abbey, 51, 192 seq., 279. 

Westwood, Master, 139. 

Whitehall, 269. 

William, Prince of Orange, 83; his 
death, 108. 



Witherborne, Dr., 237 n. 

Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal, 18, 20, 27; 

his good offices for More, 36, 39; 

deprived of Lord Chancellorship, 

39. 
Worcester, Edward Somerset, 4th 

Earl of, 187. 
Wotton, Sir Henry, 238, 245 n. 
Wright, Dr. Aldis, his edition of 

Bacon's Advancement of Learning, 

214. 
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 79. 

York House in Strand, 217. 
Youghal, 126. 

ZuTPHEN, 110. 






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